Story thread · 2 reports / 2 sources

After six months in ICE detention, a Chicago tamale vendor rebuilds her life

suntimes.com · 1h · first reportShare

Through the window of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicle as it pulled away last September, Laura Murillo could see her tamale stand near the busy Home Depot on 47th Street and Western Avenue. A folding table held coolers, containers and supplies beneath a striped umbrella next to her silver minivan. Only minutes earlier, Murillo, an immigrant from Mexico, had been waiting for her customers. The night before her arrest, Murillo had made the tamales in the kitchen of a brick building she rented on the Southeast Side. Before sunrise, she and a worker packed them into her van and she drove to set up her stand. For years, Murillo arranged much of her life around this routine. The tamale business allowed the mother of two to care for herself, support her daughters and offer work to other women. While it was grueling work, it was central to how Murillo understood herself: as an independent provider, a business owner and someone others could depend on. “Everything was work,” Mu