A teenager has died from cancer just one day after he reunited with his parents following their release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody.

Kevin Gonzalez, 18, was diagnosed with colon cancer earlier this year. The cancer later spread to his stomach and lungs, and doctors told him he was terminally ill, NBC Chicago reported.

After Kevin, who is a U.S. citizen, was diagnosed, his parents, Isidoro Gonzalez Aviles and Norma Anabel Ramirez Amaya, tried to cross the border from Mexico, but ICE agents took them into custody in Arizona on April 14, according to CNN.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told NBC Chicago that Amaya tried to re-enter the U.S. on two occasions before being caught, with the most recent attempt being alongside Aviles earlier this year. A DHS spokesperson told the network the parents applied for B-1/B-2 visas but were denied due to their previous unlawful presence and entries.

The department added to CNN that Aviles had been arrested and charged multiple times for crimes ranging from minor to serious, and said that he was deported in 2011.

Last week, Gonzalez urged authorities to release his parents so he could see them. He checked himself out of the University of Chicago Medical Center and flew to his grandmother’s home in Durango, Mexico, hoping his parents would be released in time to join him there, ABC7 reported.

Per NBC Chicago, the Mexican consulate and several lawmakers pushed for the family’s reunion. On Thursday, May 7, a judge in Arizona ordered the release of Aviles and Amaya, and they returned to Mexico the following day.

His aunt and brother confirmed his death to the outlet on Sunday, May 10, the day after he was reunited with his parents.

Gonzalez’s brother, Jovany Ramirez, who lives in Chicago, told ABC7 that his parents were taken to the border by ICE before their return to Mexico, where consulate officials helped them get on a bus and take an emergency flight.

On Saturday, May 9, they reunited in Durango, with Gonzalez embracing his mother. “What I want to say to people is thank you for helping my family to be able to have the choice,” he told CNN after they reunited. He told the network he’d spend the following day — Mother’s Day — giving Amaya “lots of hugs, over and over.”

Amaya cried as she spent time with her son, telling CNN, “These tears are from emotion, from seeing him again, from touching him again, from telling him how much I love him.”

Aviles told the network, “We went through a lot, and in the end, all I want is to be with him… We managed to make my son’s dream come true: to be with him again, to love him, to give him the love we could not give him during these months when he was not with us.”

“I knelt on his feet, I told him I was sorry if I ever disappointed him as a father and that I loved him,” he added to NBC Chicago.