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

José Gregorio González, who’s been his brother’s caregiver since the kidney transplant, was detained during a routine ICE check-in.

José 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.