Sandibell Hidalgo (left) and Ofelia Torres (proper) communicate throughout a information convention. File
| Picture Credit score: AP
A Chicago teen who spoke out for her father’s launch after he was detained final fall by immigration officers in a deportation case has died after battling a uncommon type of most cancers.
Ofelia Giselle Torres Hidalgo, 16, died Friday from stage 4 alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, the household stated in a press release. Funeral preparations are personal.
{The teenager} had been identified in December 2024 with the aggressive type of smooth tissue most cancers and had been present process chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
An immigration choose in Chicago dominated three days earlier than Ofelia’s demise that her father, Ruben Torres Maldonado, was conditionally entitled to obtain “cancellation of removing” because of the hardships his deportation would trigger his youngsters, who had been born in the US and are US residents, in keeping with the assertion despatched by an legal professional representing Torres Maldonado.
The ruling offers Torres Maldonado with a path to turning into a lawful everlasting resident and eventual U.S. citizenship, the assertion stated.
Ofelia was current by way of Zoom eventually week’s listening to.
“Ofelia was heroic and courageous within the face of ICE’s detention and threatened deportation of her father,” stated Kalman Resnick, Torres Maldonado’s legal professional. “We mourn Ofelia’s passing, and we hope that she is going to function a mannequin for us all for find out how to be brave and to battle for what’s proper to our final breaths.”
Torres Maldonado, a painter and residential renovator, was detained on October 18 at a Residence Depot retailer in suburban Chicago as the world was on the centre of a serious immigration crackdown dubbed “Operation Halfway Blitz”, which started in early September.
Ofelia was present process therapy when she appeared in October in a video posted on a GoFundMe web page arrange for the household.
“My dad, like many different fathers, is a hard-working one that wakes up early within the morning and goes to work with out complaining, desirous about his household,” she stated within the video. “I discover it so unfair that hard-working immigrant households are being focused simply because they weren’t born right here.”
In a wheelchair, she attended a listening to for her father in October. The household’s attorneys advised a choose at the moment that she was launched from the hospital only a day earlier than her father’s arrest in order that she may see household and associates. They added that Ofelia had been unable to proceed therapy “due to the stress and disruption.”
Torres Maldonado’s attorneys petitioned for his launch as his deportation case went by means of the system. A Choose ordered a bond listening to after ruling in October that his detention was unlawful and violated Torres Maldonado’s due course of rights.
A Choose later cited Torres Maldonado’s lack of prison historical past whereas permitting his launch on a $2,000 bond.
Legal professionals stated Torres Maldonado entered the U.S. in 2003. He and his accomplice, Sandibell Hidalgo, even have a youthful son.
The Division of Homeland Safety had alleged he had been residing illegally within the U.S. for years and has a historical past of driving offences, together with driving with no legitimate licence, with out insurance coverage and rushing.
Printed – February 16, 2026 09:37 am IST