HAMMOND | With her mother in federal custody, Kathy Quezada, 17, of Hammond, has to help her father supervise her three younger siblings.
Money has been tight since her mother, Maria Patricia Pareja-Cali, was arrested by federal agents Dec. 10 with 14 other members of a janitorial crew at the BP Whiting Refinery. Quezada has seen her mother twice in court since the arrest, and Quezada doesn't understand the labyrinthine federal system that governs the future of her mother, who moved to the United States from Colombia 20 years ago, Quezada said.
Quezada, a U.S. citizen, worries most that this ordeal will end with her mother's deportation.
"It's hard to think about that. I don't really want that to be an option," Quezada said.
The arrested workers' friends and family members crammed the Hammond federal courthouse Monday for hearings on the five workers who remain in federal detention while other workers are on electronically monitored house arrest. Outside the courthouse, friends and children of the workers marched up and down Hohman Avenue waving signs and screaming "freedom," "si se puede" and "free my mom."
Monday's hearings addressed criminal charges against five of the workers, who also face possible deportation through Chicago-based immigration court. The defendants are accused of entering the country illegally. Some also are charged with using various methods - including fake Social Security cards - to conceal their illegal status.
The spectators in the courtroom saw little action Monday. At defense attorneys' request, Magistrate Judge Andrew Rodovich continued the hearings for the five defendants until mid-January. The lawyers requested the delay because they want to know immigration officials' positions on bond and release before they proceed with criminal hearings, Hammond attorney Jim Foster said.
"You've got two branches of government tugging on the same body," Foster said.
All 15 workers are tied to St. Mary Catholic Church in East Chicago. The Rev. Steve Gibson called the raid a "crass, arbitrary injustice" and an act of "cowardice" that punishes a small group of people for society's failure to address our immigration system's failings.
"We can do better than this as a country," he said.
Gibson and his congregation are particularly galled by the way agents reportedly arrested the workers. Gibson and several of the workers' family members and friends said the 11 women and four men - employees of United Building Maintenance, an Illinois janitorial contractor - were called to work for a mandatory staff meeting and then arrested.
Gail Montenegro, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, would not comment on the method of arrest. Affidavits filed in Hammond court describe the arrests only as a "worksite operation."
Gibson and others have criticized the arrests' timing, just before Christmas. Montenegro said ICE agents conduct worksite raids when "sufficient evidence" is gathered. She has said this investigation started two years ago.
"The operation took place when it did because it was the appropriate time to do so after months of investigation," Montenegro said.
The timing has plucked away the heads of families just before Christmas. Jessica Sanchez, a friend of one of the women arrested, said the woman's 3-year-old daughter has been told her mother is at a church retreat. The arrested woman is not a criminal, Sanchez said. She's a "soccer mom," Sanchez said.
"It's just not right," she said.
"Our families came here to work."
