Jun 5, 2025·Chicago, IL·Colombia
Valentina Galvis, a Colombian asylum seeker, appeared at Chicago Immigration Court on June 5, 2025, hoping for a hearing on her asylum case. Her husband Camilo had been granted asylum in the same court two weeks earlier after they both fled far-right paramilitary violence in Colombia in 2022; Galvis had also survived a brutal assault from the paramilitary group. Instead of a hearing, federal prosecutors asked the judge to dismiss her case, and plainclothes agents detained her immediately upon leaving the courtroom. Galvis and her seven-month-old son Naythan, a U.S. citizen, were taken to the Sonesta Chicago O'Hare Airport Rosemont hotel, where they were confined to a two-room suite for five days with the phone removed, monitored by private guards contracted by ICE, and given no information about their whereabouts or release. During this time, ICE's online locator system falsely showed Galvis being held more than 700 miles away in Washington, D.C., according to screenshots reviewed by family members. Her attorney filed a habeas corpus petition and a judge ordered her not be removed from Illinois, but ICE did not inform her of these legal developments. On the fifth day, she was released to ICE's Intensive Supervision Appearance Program office in Chicago and fitted with an electronic monitoring bracelet. The contractor MVM Inc. transported and guarded her during her detention, and Sonesta, the hotel chain, has said it has no knowledge of any illegal detentions at its properties. Her original asylum case dismissal is now on appeal and she has a new case pending.