A man is hospitalized in suburban Melrose Park after being detained by federal immigration agents Sunday morning, his family says.
Ricardo Rodriguez, 53, was riding his bike to get groceries when federal agents stopped him, according to Rodriguez’s niece Stephanie Suaine. Videos circulating on social media show an agent placing Rodriguez in a chokehold and striking his head at least once before two more agents approach and appear to put Rodriguez in handcuffs.
“My uncle got up and they punched him … they’re still choking him,” Stephanie Suaine said as she watched the video. “It makes me mad because he’s old already. They shouldn’t be treating old people like that.”
Rodriguez, who immigrated to California from Mexico in the 1980s as a teenager and later moved to Melrose Park, began complaining of chest pains, prompting agents to bring him to the emergency room at Gottlieb Memorial Hospital Sunday morning, Stephanie Suaine said.
I’m “just wanting to see my uncle, see if he’s doing fine, the way they were hitting him and everything,” she said.
Stephanie Suaine and her mom, Dora Suaine, who is Rodriguez’s sister, arrived at the hospital but weren’t allowed to see him. They asked two masked men in plainclothes standing outside his hospital room if they could go in, and they were told no. Stephanie Suaine asked the men if they were with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the men said they were with “an agency,” but they didn’t elaborate, she said.
In a video showing part of the interaction shared with the Chicago Sun-Times, Stephanie Suaine asks if the men are the ones who detained and hit Rodriguez, and the men say no.
The men later called hospital security to escort Rodriguez’s family to the waiting room, Stephanie Suaine said.
“They haven’t told us nothing; they don’t let us see him,” she said. “They didn’t tell us nothing at all.”
The men said they didn’t know what would happen to Rodriguez when he was released from the hospital, and his family fears he’ll be deported or held in federal custody. When Dora Suaine, a U.S. citizen, asked if she could go with her brother if he were deported, the men asked to see her proof of citizenship, she said.
Dora Suaine caught a glimpse of her brother bleeding from the head with a bandage wrapped around the wound, she said.
“I just want to see how he’s doing,” Dora Suaine said in Spanish with her daughter translating. “I feel bad because he’s my brother and I love him. We are very connected.”
About 8 p.m. Sunday, Rodriguez’s family didn’t have much information on his condition or prognosis. They thought he may be in the intensive care unit, but they weren’t sure.
In the hospital waiting room Sunday night, Dora Suaine wept quietly, hugging people who came to see how her brother was doing. At one point, a security guard asked a visitor what he was doing there and told him he couldn’t see Rodriguez because there was a “restriction” on his room.
“You can’t go up there, you can’t even try to go up there,” the security guard said before warning the family and friends that visiting hours were over and they would have to leave soon. The Suaines left shortly after 8:30 p.m. and planned to come back in the morning.
A supporter suggested the security guard ask ICE to leave and the security guard responded, “We can’t do that.”
A Loyola Medicine spokesperson confirmed ICE officers brought a detainee to the hospital and said visitation is restricted and up to the discretion of the law enforcement agency for anyone in custody.
“Loyola Medicine treats federal agencies like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) the same way we treat all law enforcement personnel. If they need to enter our facilities, they coordinate with our Security team,” spokesperson Allison Peters said in a statement. “This morning, ICE personnel came to Gottlieb Memorial Hospital to accompany a patient in their custody who required medical care. We cannot share any information on patients.”
Hospital staff have been in contact with the family about Rodriguez’s condition, Peters said.
Organizers rallied outside the hospital Monday morning, where family members were again turned away without getting updates on Rodriguez’s condition. The group delivered a letter and petition to the hospital requesting federal agents be told to leave and that the family be allowed to see him. A hospital security guard took the letter and said it would be delivered to the hospital.
“They’re trying to see what they can get away with,” said Maria Elena, with Casa DuPage Workers Center, at the rally. “The only way we can do anything about it is if we fight back.”
Rodriguez grew up in Zacatecas, Mexico, and works in construction building houses. He doesn’t have a criminal record, Stephanie Suaine said. She described her uncle as “funny” and “calm.”
“When I tell you he would give you his shirt off his back, he would,” she said.
The Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.