Jose Antuna, 40, a migrant from Venezuela, takes medication for his injuries on June 11, 2024, at his home in Chicago. After tearing his meniscus in November while working at a car wash in Melrose Park and being hit by a car in May at the Swap-O-Rama Antuna has been unable to work. Jose Antuna fell through a drain at a west suburban car wash where he worked and tore his meniscus in mid-November.
Immigrants who can’t work legally are more likely to work higher-risk jobs and less likely to know how to access protection if they need it, advocates say.
Workers who have filed for compensation are supposed to receive temporary, weekly wage replacement benefits during the period in which they’re being treated, and then more once the case is closed. For five months, Antuna slowly recuperated his knee to a point where he could walk again. His orthopedic surgeon cleared him to return to work on March 21, according to medical records.Venezuelans escaping economic ruin and government prosecution in their country of origin have accounted for many of the arrivals in Chicago.
“The third time, they hit my wife. She had my daughter in her arms,” he said. “They took everything. Everything I had worked for.He and his wife filed a report against the government, which didn’t sit favorably with officials. They were facing death threats from the government, he said. But on May 25 around 5:30 p.m., his boss’s wife — who had recently found out that her husband was cheating on her — got into her car in a fit of jealousy. Antuna was standing in the parking lot between the couple.
“Until someone is done with treatment, or at the very end of treatment, we can’t place a value on a case,” she said.