Washington, DC – Below is a column by Maribel Hastings from America’s Voice en Español translated to English from Spanish. It ran in several Spanish-language media outlets earlier this week:
Kevin González, 18, died on Mother’s Day, May 10, from colon cancer. Although he was born in Chicago and was there when he was diagnosed in January of this year, he died in Durango, Mexico, where he had traveled while ill to his grandmother’s home, believing it was the only way to fulfill his wish to say goodbye to his undocumented parents, who were detained in the United States.
He managed to say goodbye hours before he passed away. But his death came after a senseless ordeal because cases like this should always have a humane and dignified resolution that doesn’t cut short the precious time Kevin’s parents, Isidoro and Norma Anabel, had to spend with their son.
Cancer has touched me very closely, and on several occasions. I know how precious the time is that one shares with a loved one who has been given a terminal diagnosis. You treasure every second despite the grief and physical and mental exhaustion of spending sleepless nights making sure that person has everything they need—above all, love—and that they do not suffer.
I cannot even begin to imagine the pain and helplessness of being denied permission to say goodbye to your dying son. Or Kevin’s anguish at not being able to be with his parents during his final days.
When Kevin was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer, his parents were in Mexico, but they could not travel to the United States because the visas they applied for were denied due to a previous deportation. Their desperation was such that they risked crossing the border without documents once again and were detained in Arizona.
Kevin decided to go to Mexico to wait for them. Weeks passed, and finally, a judge allowed an expedited deportation, and they arrived in Durango on May 9. Kevin died the next day.
“He didn’t deserve that suffering,” Kevin’s father told Telemundo.
This administration’s immigration policy demonstrates a lack of humanity. The denial of a permit for Kevin’s parents to say goodbye highlights an inflexible system. Even when Kevin’s doctors in Chicago advocated with immigration authorities, their calls for compassion were ignored.
This government has deported U.S. citizen children in the middle of cancer treatments, so miracles cannot be expected.
But it is outrageous that while they show no empathy in such cases and continue to arrest and deport people with no criminal history, they fail to press charges against real criminals because they have diverted funds and personnel from other agencies to their anti-immigrant crusade. This is despite having $170 billion for their mass detentions and deportations, and Congress wanting to give them an additional $70 billion.
Reuters reported that from January to April of this year, federal prosecutors filed charges in only eight cases related to drugs or guns, compared to 77 cases during the same period in 2025.
“It’s a public safety issue that they’re not doing the types of prosecutions they should be doing,” Mary Moriarty, Hennepin County attorney in Minnesota—the epicenter of violent immigration raids targeting people with no criminal history—told the news agency.
The fact is that Trump sold the idea that he would fight crime, but his obsession with mass deportations has led him to neglect the most serious criminal cases by focusing on immigration. Government prosecutors are overwhelmed trying to handle all the pending criminal cases, and on top of that, they must deal with all the lawsuits against the government for rights violations—including against citizens—during its immigration raids.
In effect, the government’s current immigration policy harms both the economy and public safety by diverting resources from prosecuting serious crimes.
It also undermines our values. What can undocumented immigrants expect from a government capable of fabricating legal cases against prominent U.S. citizens just to satisfy the White House occupant’s thirst for revenge, who considers them his “enemies”?
A government that pardons criminals but persecutes working families, deports US citizen children suffering from cancer, and does not show the empathy or compassion to allow Kevin’s parents to spend more time with their terminally ill child.
The original Spanish version is here.
