By Sara Lindsay, Deputy Editor
On September 12, 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers pulled up their vehicles and attempted to detain Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez. An ICE agent fatally shot the 38-year-old father near Grand Avenue and 25th Avenue.
It is believed that Villegas-Gonzalez was the first person to be shot and killed by an ICE agent during President Donald Trump’s second term.
The shooting occurred only a short drive from Elmwood Park and as part of a regional enforcement initiative known as “Operation Midway Blitz,” which is explicitly aimed at Chicago and its progressive Black mayor for maintaining a “welcoming city ordinance.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claims that Villegas-Gonzalez resisted arrest and drove off, allegedly striking and dragging an officer.
At the time of publication, ICE has not released the officer’s name and video circulating online (released by local businesses) does not align with the narrative promoted by Trump officials.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has criticized the agency for being “unwilling” to share details. He shared several questions on September 17 that residents in the Chicagoland area should ask the Trump administration, including, “Does DHS have any photos, videos, or other documentation surrounding the September 12 incident that involved an ICE agent?”
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and U.S. Representative Delia Ramirez have also called the death a tragedy and urged transparency.
In the days following the incident, Gonzalez’s family has launched a GoFundMe to cover funeral and burial expenses and demand justice. Vigils have drawn crowds in Franklin Park.
While ICE insists the shooting was self-defense, that framing removes the human reality of the loss. Villegas-Gonzalez was a father and community member who migrated from Mexico. His family says he had just dropped his children off at school, and according to WBEZ, Villegas-Gonzalez had committed traffic violations but never been accused of “reckless driving.”
His death is not merely a statistic. It is a wound felt deeply in Franklin Park and surrounding towns, like Elmwood Park, where nearly 40 percent of the population is Hispanic.
On September 15, I visited the growing memorial in Franklin Park. I saw flowers and candles carefully arranged, tended by neighbors who come daily to water them. People quietly shared stories and grief. They even offered us water, an act of kindness in a moment of deep sorrow. I felt heartbreak, but I also felt clarity.
If we remain silent amidst authoritarianism, our communities will face repeated tragedies. We owe it to Villegas-Gonzalez, his family, his children, and our communities to care about what happened. We cannot allow his death to be brushed aside.
We not only have the power but the responsibility to speak, to organize, and to demand a world where families don’t lose loved ones to militarized ambushes by ICE agents.
The next death could be someone in Elmwood Park or another nearby neighborhood, if we resume our lives like this will all eventually go away.
The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) has “Know Your Rights” fact sheets—in Spanish [PDF], Polish [PDF], Ukrainian [PDF], and English [PDF]. They can offer assistance if you or your loved one is detained by ICE, and ICIRR also encourages people to report ICE sightings:
Reports should describe the location of agents, the time that you saw agents, the actions and behavior of agents, and the individuals, vehicles, etc., and any equipment or weapons that were used.
You may also visit the Illinois Immigration Information Hub, which is a partnership between immigrant rights organizations, legal aid groups, and state and local government agencies in Illinois.
Finally, journalists across newsrooms in Chicago have banded together. They’re encouraging people in communities to submit footage of any “use of force, stop and frisk, and traffic stops conducted by federal agents.” (Here’s a form for submission to help them document the surge in ICE operations, especially in the suburbs.)
This is not just about immigration enforcement. It is about whether we should allow government agencies to use deadly force without accountability—against people who are our neighbors, our coworkers, our classmates’ parents, our friends, and our families.
I fervently believe that no human being is illegal. Because when we reduce people to that label, we strip away their dignity and make violence against them more acceptable. We must resist that dehumanization.
Some further context for Sara's heartfelt column: “Since January 20 through the end of July," according to the CATO Institute, "ICE has conducted over 16,000 street arrests of immigrants who had no criminal convictions, charges, or removal orders. Incredibly, over half (nearly 9,000) occurred in June and July alone: about 90 percent of them were immigrants from Latin America.”
Read: https://www.cato.org/blog/1/5-ice-arrests-are-latinos-streets-no-criminal-past-or-removal-order
—Kevin Gosztola
Well said and I completely agree. Elmwood Park's diversity is one of its most compelling features. Our neighbors, immigrant or otherwise, all deserve a sense of belonging and safety. We fail ourselves and our children when we treat people as "other" and deserving of cruelty and violence at the hands of our government. Thank you for sharing Silvio's story.