1. United States
2. Texas
3. Letter

Shut down ICE detention centers. What happened to Kevin Gonzalez — an 18-year-old Chicago-born American who died of stage 4 colon cancer days after finally reaching his parents — is what this system looks like when it's working exactly as designed. His parents applied for emergency visas to be with their dying son. They were denied. They tried to cross the border out of desperation and were locked up in federal custody in Arizona while Kevin checked himself out of the University of Chicago Medical Center and flew to Mexico alone, not knowing if he'd see them before he died. A judge had to intervene. Rep. Delia Ramirez and her staff had to fight to get two parents on a plane to hold their son's hand. That is not a system with a compassion problem — that is a system built on cruelty. Kevin died the day after they were reunited. His mother, Anabel Ramírez Amaya, never got to be with him through the worst of it. No family should have to clear legal and bureaucratic obstacles just to say goodbye. Close these detention centers. End this.