GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Hispanic businesses in Grand Rapids are raising money through donation buckets for the family of Mario David Coronado Juarez.
On Sept. 20, the 36-year-old man from Guatemala died in a car crash after fleeing from a traffic stop conducted by ICE. While he had been living in the country illegally, according to the Department of Homeland Security, he was not the intended target of the stop.
"I feel like he deserves to go back to Guatemala," said Aileen Velasquez-Gonzalez, manager of Tienda Xela, a Guatemalan grocery store on Cesar Chavez Avenue. "He deserves to rest with his loved ones, his family deserves to say their last goodbyes."
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Velasquez-Gonzalez knew Coronado as a customer of the store. He'd routinely use its services to send money back home to his wife and three children who live in Tuichilupe, a rural village in Guatemala.
"He was trying to build his dream house," Velasquez-Gonzalez said.
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While the Guatemalan consulate has agreed to cover the cost of transporting Coronado's body back to his country, members of the Hispanic community in Grand Rapids are trying to help with the cost of a funeral and fundraising to build the house he always wanted for his family.
At a vigil for Coronado on Thursday, a series of small, white buckets collected donations. They've since been placed at Hispanic businesses in the area, including Tienda Xela.
"What we're going through as a whole community, as a Hispanic community, everybody's been scared," Velasquez-Gonzalez said.
Velasquez-Gonzalez says her father is one of the thousands in Michigan who have been picked up by ICE officers since President Donald Trump took office.
She says he was undocumented and in the process of becoming a U.S. citizen, and was deported.
"Right now he's in Guatemala," Velasquez-Gonzalez said about her father, adding that he's working to legally return to the United States and his family.
"Thank God he's okay," she said. "It's not like that with Mario. He's not able to go back to his family and hug them and say to them, 'I love you.'"
"He's not able to say his goodbyes."
A number of pages on online fundraising platforms have also been created in support of Coronado's family, including a GoFundMe, Chuffed and a Givebutter.
"We're really strong when it gets to this. We get together and stand for our people," Velasquez-Gonzalez said.
Grand Rapids
