Illinois lawmakers demand answers in Ice killing: ‘A traffic violation should never amount to a death sentence’

A US congresswoman from Illinois and local officials in and around Chicago are calling for an investigation into the traffic stop initiated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents that resulted in the shooting death of Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez on Friday.

A joint statement whose signatories included Democratic US House member Delia Ramirez said Villegas-Gonzalez’s killing in the Chicago suburb of Franklin Park illustrated “the inevitable violence” resulting from the deportation campaign mounted by Donald Trump’s administration during his second presidency.

The statement also said community members were “outraged” at the “violent spectacle” that killed Villegas-Gonzalez near a school at a time when parents were dropping their children off.

“What happened … is not an isolated incident. It is the consequence of Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda,” the statement said in part.

The Trump-led Department of Homeland Security (DHS) accused Villegas-Gonzalez of having “resisted arrest, attempted to flee the scene and dragged a [Ice] officer a significant distance with his car” at the time of his killing.

One surveillance video of the incident uploaded to social media shows Villegas-Gonzalez backing up, then driving forward with at least one officer pulling on his door. Another video shows agents trying to get into Villegas-Gonzalez’s car by pulling on a door handle after it crashed into a truck.

The agents eventually breaks the glass and unlocks the car from the inside. One of the agents pulls Villegas-Gonzalez’s body several feet away from the car before laying it on the ground. That agent and another both kneel next to Villegas-Gonzalez, whose legs are seen moving before the video ends.

Villegas-Gonzalez’s death comes as Ice has ramped up operations in Chicago and the city’s suburbs in what the agency dubbed Operation Midway Blitz. On social media, DHS officials said the operation was meant to honor Katie Abraham, one of two women killed in a car crash in January. Officials investigating that wreck charged Julio Cucul-Bol, a Guatemalan national who was in the US without permission, with leaving the scene of a deadly crash, aggravated driving under the influence resulting in death and reckless homicide.

Ice on Friday detained another man, named William Alberto Gimenez Gonzalez, who was in a barber shop at the time of his arrest. The local advocacy group Latino Union of Chicago released a statement expressing concern that Gimenez may have been targeted because of his involvement with a lawsuit against the retail chain Home Depot and off-duty Chicago police officers.

A 2024 investigation by the local news outlet and journalism lab City Bureau had found that recently arrived immigrants were being physically assaulted and detained by Home Depot store employees and off-duty officers.

Ice was previously sued in 2018 by Illinois advocacy groups and people who were detained by the agency after it conducted warrantless traffic stops on people in the state. The two sides reached a settlement in 2022 that required the agency to develop a nationwide policy on arrests without warrants and traffic stops. The settlement included certain conditions, including immediate release, if Ice arrested someone without a warrant. The settlement terms were valid through May.

“While the investigation is ongoing, we know that a traffic violation should never amount to a death sentence,” the joint statement signed by Ramirez and other Chicago political officials said. “We demand a full and thorough investigation into what happened today.”

Illinois governor JB Pritzker echoed that statement separately in an online post, saying, the people of the state deserved “a full, factual accounting of what’s happened … to ensure transparency and accountability”.

According to Mexico’s consulate in Chicago, Villegas-Gonzalez was a cook and Mexican national. The consulate said it had been in touch with Villegas-Gonzalez’s family and requested more information from Ice about the deadly shooting.

A person who knew him said that Villegas-Gonzalez had been dropping off his kids at school, as was his routine, prior to his death and the traffic stop.

“He was a good father, looked out for his children – currently he was the one taking care of them,” the person said. “He takes them to school, he arranges to get them picked up – he is with the children nearly full-time. He is not a bad father.”

When asked about Villegas-Gonzalez, the person responded about how much care he had for his two young children:

“[Silverio was] a person who looks out for his children, takes care of them, and wants to be with them at home, and despite the fact that he was sick. He was undergoing dialysis.

“For him to be shot, how he was shot – I don’t think it’s justice.”