Immigrant who donated lifesaving kidney to his brother is detained by ICE again

ImmigrationImmigrant who donated lifesaving kidney to his brother is detained by ICE againJosé Gregorio González, who’s been his brother’s caregiver since the kidney transplant, was detained during a routine ICE check-in.Listen to this article with a free profile00:0000:00José Alfredo Pacheco, left, with his brother José Gregorio González.José Alfredo Pacheco via NBC ChicagoShareAdd NBC News to GoogleJuly 31, 2026, 3:00 PM EDTBy Nicole Acevedo and Marlene GuzmánJosé Gregorio González is inside an immigration detention center almost a year after he donated his kidney to save the life of his brother, who has end-stage renal disease.The Venezuelan man was taken into ICE custody July 21 during a routine check-in appointment with immigration authorities in Chicago. González had been reporting to Immigration and Customs Enforcement since April on a weekly basis, sometimes more than once. The agency had placed him in an intensive supervision program to monitor his whereabouts after his yearlong humanitarian parole expired, according to his lawyer and brother.“I don’t really see a need to necessarily detain him,” said Peter Meinecke, an attorney handling his immigration case and the managing attorney at Resurrection Project, a nonprofit group in Chicago. “He has no criminal record and has been dutifully complying with supervision,” Meinecke told NBC News.José Alfredo Pacheco, González’s younger brother and the recipient of his kidney, had just finished a follow-up medical appointment to monitor his recovery from the transplant he received last August. He texted González to let him know he was on his way to pick him up from his ICE check-in.“Three minutes later, he replied, ‘Brother, I love you. They’re about to deport me.’ That was the only thing he wrote to me,” Pacheco told Noticias Telemundo in Spanish on Wednesday.“My world came crashing down,” he said, noting that González is his sole caregiver. “My biggest fear is being left alone here.”González’s story first made hea...