Chicago DJ Omar David Panqueva Rojas, known as DJ TUNJO, and his husband Santiago Páez were released from ICE custody on bond after their Aug. 2 arrest at Midway Airport.
Chicago DJ Omar David Panqueva Rojas, who performs as DJ TUNJO, and his husband Santiago Páez were released on bond Aug. 12 from ICE custody after being detained since Aug. 2. The couple was arrested at Midway Airport before a flight to Washington, D.C., where they planned to host after-parties tied to Karol G's tour. They were held first at the ICE processing center in Broadview and then transferred to a detention facility in Clay County, Indiana, before their release. Both are now fitted with ankle monitors and allowed to travel within the U.S. while their immigration case proceeds.
Omar David Panqueva Rojas, a Chicago DJ who performs as DJ TUNJO, is home again. So is his husband, Santiago Páez. But neither man is free of the legal case that began when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents stopped them at Midway Airport on Aug. 2.
The couple was released on bond Aug. 12 after more than a week apart in custody, according to their attorney. They had been detained first at the ICE processing facility in Broadview, then transferred to a detention center in Clay County, Indiana. On Wednesday, both men were fitted with ankle monitors as a condition of their release. They can travel within the United States, but the monitors stay on while their case moves through immigration court.
Agents detained Panqueva Rojas and Páez as they were preparing to board a flight to Washington, D.C. The couple had booked the trip to attend unofficial after-parties tied to Colombian pop star Karol G's U.S. tour, similar events Panqueva Rojas has DJed under the name DJ TUNJO in Chicago.
Instead, they spent the following days moving between detention sites, separated from each other for most of it. Panqueva Rojas and Páez described the transfer from Broadview to Indiana as disorienting: they were handcuffed and shackled at the ankles on a bus with metal bars over the windows, given little information about where they were headed or what would happen next. The driver played Latin music during the ride, including salsa and reggaeton, the same genres the couple has spun at parties across the city.
"Songs that we would play at our parties, like, salsa merengue, reggaeton songs, at one of the most traumatizing moments of our lives and when we couldn't even hold hands. We were just crying," Páez said.
Panqueva Rojas said the ordeal felt disconnected from the life they had built in Chicago. "It was all confusing and really sad because Chicago is the city that we love, where we were reborn, created a community, where everybody that we love is around," he said.
Conditions inside the two facilities added to the strain, the couple said. They described the holding cells in Broadview as dirty, and their first night in Indiana, in a cell kept cold by air conditioning and shared with about five other detainees, as the worst night of their lives. The next day, ICE separated the couple, and they did not see each other again until their release.
Panqueva Rojas said he is adjusting to life outside detention and looking at ways to slowly return to DJ work under his TUNJO name, building spaces around music he says is rooted in spreading love. Páez and Panqueva Rojas both said the days since their release have been about steadying themselves after the separation and the uncertainty, at several points during their detention, of not knowing where they would end up next.
Their release on bond does not end the legal proceedings that started with the Aug. 2 arrest. The couple's immigration case remains open, and the ankle monitors mean ICE still considers them subject to continued supervision while the case is resolved in court.
For now, Panqueva Rojas and Páez are staying in Chicago, the city they both said is where their relationship and careers took shape. The monitors mean both men remain under ICE oversight and cannot leave the country while the case is pending. No hearing date has been made public.
