On Sept. 21, Darwin Leal turned 24. His family made him a cake, lit it up with candles and sang him “Happy Birthday” over a video call. He was almost 300 miles away, sharing a cell with dozens of people in a correctional facility in western Michigan.

Just a week earlier on a Sunday, the Venezuelan immigrant had been driving in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood with his wife, 23, and two kids — a 1-year-old boy, Lennyel, and a then-3-year-old girl, Nicolles — on their way to look at a new place they were hoping to move into, when federal immigration agents stopped the car.

“Darwin? Salte del vehículo, estás bajo arresto ,” an agent could be heard saying in a video filmed by the wife and later shared on social media. “Leave the vehicle, you’re under arrest.”

“ ¿Por qué? ” the cou

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