A Venezuelan man who wants to donate a kidney to his brother faced deportation. ICE granted him one-year humanitarian parole

By Andi Babineau, CNN

(CNN) — After being detained for more than a month by immigration authorities, Jose Gregorio Gonzalez was released Friday morning so he can continue the process of trying to donate a kidney to his brother.

Gonzalez, who came to the United States to help his brother battling kidney failure, learned earlier this week he’d be deported, prompting desperate pleas for him to be released from immigration custody on humanitarian grounds. Days later, Gonzalez was granted a reprieve from deportation, an advocate said.

Gonzalez will be allowed to remain in the US for one year on humanitarian parole, the brothers’ attorney, Peter Meinecke, said Friday during a news conference following Gonzalez’s release.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement released a similar statement Friday, telling CNN, “After providing proper documentation ICE granted Gonzalez a temporary stay on humanitarian grounds.”

Gonzalez is under an order of supervision and will have to check in periodically with ICE. He will also be eligible to apply for a work permit, according to Meinecke.

“Most people who work in immigration will tell you that outcomes like this are not common,” Meinecke said.

His release is the result of a campaign organized by the Resurrection Project, a Chicago-based non-profit, to convince ICE agents to allow Gonzalez to stay with his brother, Jose Alfredo Pacheco.

“Jose (Gonzalez’s) case is not distinctive in its posture, but it is distinctive in its potential to show us a pathway to fight back against this reality,” Meinecke said.

Illinois Congressman Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, a Democrat, also worked behind the scenes to support Gonzalez’s release, including writing a letter of support and contacting ICE “multiple times” on Gonzalez’s behalf, organizers said.

Gonzalez and Pacheco reunited Friday with an emotional embrace following Gonzalez’s release, video from CNN newsgathering partner Univision shows.

The brothers later stood together during the news conference, at times clasping each other’s hands.

“I am extremely happy for the liberation of my brother,” Pacheco told the crowd, speaking in Spanish translated through an interpreter. “We grew up very close together, very united … we stayed very close. So imagine, they separated me a month and a day from him without knowing what was going to happen to him.”

He said the first thing he and Gonzalez are planning to do is call their mom, so she can see the two of them together.

Gonzalez also made a brief statement, saying he’s grateful for the “unbelievable” support from the community.

“Never would have imagined that that was possible,” an organizer translated for him.

Though temporary, the reprieve means Gonzalez can continue to help his brother by driving him to dialysis and, possibly, becoming a kidney donor.

Pacheco immigrated to the United States from Venezuela in 2022 seeking asylum, said Tovia Siegel, director of organizing and leadership for immigrant justice at the Resurrection Project. His case, filed in 2023, is still pending.

He began experiencing abdominal pain that year, after arriving in the Chicago area. Pacheco, 37, sought treatment at a local hospital and was diagnosed with end-stage renal disease, or kidney failure, Siegel said.

Gonzalez, 43, learned of his brother’s diagnosis and came to the United States at the end of 2023. He presented himself at the border on two occasions: On his first attempt, he did not pass a credible fear interview and was denied entry. On his second try, he used an app created by Customs and Border Protection which, during the Biden administration, allowed asylum seekers to schedule interviews at the border.

“Because he had a prior removal order, at that point, he was detained,” Siegel told CNN.

He was released several months later on an order of supervision because Venezuela was not accepting deportation flights at the time, Siegel said. The order required him to make regular check-ins with immigration authorities and to wear an ankle monitor, but it enabled him to live with and care for his brother over the past year.

“Through that time, they were undergoing the necessary tests to determine that Jose could donate his kidney to Alfredo,” Siegel said.

They were preparing for the possibility of an operation when ICE agents showed up March 3 at the Cicero, Illinois, home where the brothers lived, Siegel said. They took Gonzalez into custody.

Monday, a judge denied Gonzalez’s stay of removal, making his brother and immigration advocates at the Chicago-based Resurrection Project fear his deportation was imminent.

But Wednesday, his attorney received word that ICE would grant Gonzalez humanitarian parole, allowing him to temporarily stay in the United States to continue caring for Pacheco – and possibly make the life-saving organ donation.

At a vigil Monday night calling for Gonzalez’s release, before ICE granted the humanitarian parole, Pacheco told the crowd he requires a four-hour dialysis three times a week to survive without a transplant.

“It’s extremely difficult – sometimes, I can barely get out of bed,” he said in Spanish. “My brother is a good man. … He came only with the hope of donating his kidney to me.”

Since the beginning of March when Gonzalez was detained, Pacheco has been shouldering the burden of his diagnosis alone.

“He’s tired, he’s nauseous, and because he has not had his brother here, he’s had to drive himself to and from appointments,” Siegel said. “So aside from the incredible emotional pain of the family separation and detention, there have also been really significant practical struggles for Alfredo.”

As of April 1, more than 90,000 people in the United States are on the kidney transplant waiting list, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. Through February of this year, the most recent data available, fewer than 4,500 people had received a transplant, the organization’s data shows. And just 1,000 of those donations came from living donors.

The brothers plan to resume the process of determining whether they are compatible for the transplant. If they are not, they will participate in a program called a “paired kidney exchange,” which connects one or more pairs of compatible donors and recipients.

“What’s pretty amazing about it is it actually means that by donating his kidney, Jose Gregorio would actually save two people’s lives,” Siegel said, “because there would be two people in need of transplants who would receive them.”

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