In Support of Jose Fiscal Belli
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Right now, Jose is sitting in an ICE detention facility in Louisiana — not because of anything he did wrong, but because of a paperwork mistake made when he was a child. His wife and four kids need him home, and his family needs help getting him there.
My name is Nick Conner — I coach high school sports here, I own a business in town, and Jose has been my friend for several years. His generosity reaches well beyond our team; he's shown up again and again to help feed our kids and support them however he can. I'm writing this because right now, he can't.
Who Jose Is
Jose is a husband and a father of four. He manages Taco Tequila's in Clinton and, together with his wife, recently opened Main St. Cafe in Paris, IL — a small breakfast cafe that just opened its doors and, like any new business, hasn't turned a profit yet. He's the hands-on father to all four kids, including a stepson for whom he is the primary, day-to-day parent.
His roots in this community go far beyond his own family and businesses. He sponsors the high school girls' soccer team. He coaches and mentors kids through Little League. He's the guy who shows up — lending a hand wherever it's needed, showing up for other people's kids the same way he shows up for his own. Ask around Paris or Clinton and you'll hear the same thing over and over: he's a friend to so many, and family to even more. This isn't a stranger caught up in a bureaucratic mistake — this is someone this community already leans on, and now that community has a chance to lean back.
This isn't about politics. It's about a good man who has spent years showing up for this community, now asking that same community to show up for him and his family.
What Happened
Jose was brought to the United States as a minor by his father, who had no choice but to put him to work right away to help support family back in Mexico. Years ago, while they were living in Minnesota, immigration officers raided the apartment building where they lived. Jose and his father were detained and then released — they had no criminal record and were never the target of that raid. Soon after, Jose's father moved them to Indiana to take a job. What neither of them knew was that a notice to appear in court had been mailed to their old Minnesota address after they'd already left. They never received it. Because they missed a hearing they never knew about, a judge entered a removal order in 2011 against a minor child who had done nothing but follow his father to a new job.
For years, no one — not even the family's own immigration attorney — knew that order existed.
In 2021, one month after marrying his wife, Jose filed for a marriage-based green card. USCIS approved every single step of that process. His case has been fully approved; the family has simply been waiting on the final procedural steps to make his permanent residency official. It was only during that process that the old removal order surfaced, and Jose's attorney has spent recent months working to get it corrected, given the clear circumstances: he was a minor, he had no say in the move, and he had no criminal history.
Last week, while waiting outside a government building, Jose was detained by ICE for a parking mistake — pulling into what he didn't realize wasn't a designated pickup/drop-off spot. Because of the old order, he was taken into custody and is now being held at a Louisiana ICE detention facility while his family works urgently to get the years-old case reopened.
Why Time Is Critical
Because Jose already has that old final order on his record, he does not currently have an automatic right to go before a judge before ICE can remove him — that 2011 order already closed his case once. The only way he gets back in front of a court at all is if his attorney succeeds in reopening it or securing a stay. This isn't a fight to win a case that's already scheduled for a hearing; it's a fight to earn the right to be heard in the first place, on a clock that ICE controls, not the family. And even in the best-case scenario, cases like this — reopening a removal order, resolving it, and finalizing an already-approved green card — can take months to fully play out. This isn't a fundraiser for a single emergency that resolves in a week; it's support for a family getting through a real legal fight that will likely stretch on, on top of the immediate crisis of Jose being taken from them right now.
Where the Funds Go
- Legal fees — retaining experienced immigration counsel to reopen the removal case, seek his release, and finalize the residency process that USCIS has already approved
- Family support — rent, utilities, groceries, and childcare for four kids while the family's income is disrupted
- Medical expenses — ongoing care needs for the family during this crisis
With Jose detained, his family has lost their main source of stability at the worst possible time: a brand-new business with real bills and no cushion yet, four kids who need their dad, and mounting legal costs to fix an injustice that was never his fault.
Jose has done everything asked of him at every step of a legal process — married, filed, waited, and was approved by USCIS at every turn. This detention is the result of a decades-old mailing error, not anything he did wrong. Any contribution, no matter the size, helps keep his family standing — now and through whatever comes next — while we work to bring him home. Sharing this page, even without giving, also makes a real difference.
Thank you for reading Jose's story and for anything you're able to offer his family right now.
— Nick Conner, on behalf of Jose's family
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- Created Jul 27, 2026
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