Natalie Chavez’s mother always helped her with her panic attacks. Now, the 12-year-old said, she has to rely on herself. That’s because immigration officers handcuffed and shackled her mom, Elvira Benitez-Suarez, 51, of Sheboygan Falls, during a routine immigration check-in last week. She was taken to Chicago, then Indiana and now resides at the Campbell County Detention Center in Kentucky. “My mom is not a criminal,” said Natalie through tears at a Thursday press conference. “She does a lot of good things, she helps us, she helps the community, she helps her church, she helps others.” Understanding Wisconsin, Together. WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” newsletter keeps you connected to the state you love without feeling overwhelmed. No paywall. No agenda. No corporate filter. Elvira Benitez-Suarez’s husband and three of her four children joined advocates from Voces de la Frontera at an event Thursday in Milwaukee to demand her immediate release from ICE custody. It’s part of a new “Justice for Elvira” campaign. The family’s lawyer, Marc Christopher, appealed the case earlier this week. But he said the average wait time for such cases is 18 months. But it’s ultimately the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to keep her in Kentucky, Christopher said, and something that the administration could reverse. Last year, Benitez-Suarez was traveling with her husband and two youngest children to Niagara Falls. Their GPS took them on a wrong turn and into Canada. “When they (turned) around is when this family’s nightmare began,” Christopher said. Benitez-Suarez’s husband, Ricardo Chavez, was sent to a detention facility in northern Michigan. Elvira was sent to a center in Ohio. Their extended family traveled to Michigan to pick up the two children. “They had to endure something that you would hope no family would have to endure, absolute separation from each other for six months.” Benitez-Suarez wore a jail uniform and spent that time in the general population, despite having no criminal history. She slept in a dorm cell each night while her older daughter helped raise the young children. In December 2025, Benitez-Suarez got her day in court. A federal immigration judge looked at her case and ruled in her favor, deciding she should get permanent resident status — a green card. Elvira Benitez Suarez is seen here celebrating her birthday. Photo courtesy of Crystal Aguilar The government appealed that decision, and the appeal was ongoing when ICE agents arrested her at her routine check-in. In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security referred to Benitez-Suarez as an “illegal alien from Mexico” and confirmed she is in ICE custody. They ensured she will receive “full due process.” The statement encouraged all of those in the country without documentation to leave immediately, and said “being in detention is a choice.” Benitez-Suarez came to the U.S. from Mexico 36 years ago when she was 15. Her mother had died. She was living in poverty and facing “the most extreme and terrible abuse” from her family, Christopher said. She took her 9-year-old sister and together they fled, crossing the desert. She had been in the U.S. ever since. It’s where she started a family, found her church community, paid taxes, volunteered and began a successful cleaning business. When her adult daughter Crystal Aguilar speaks on the phone with her mother, she hears the pain in her voice. “I know my mom is struggling, and it’s not easy having to hear her over the phone, falling apart,” Aguilar said. “I urge for her release and for her to be able to come home.” Wisconsin Public Radio, © Copyright 2026, Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System and Wisconsin Educational Communications Board.