Crime & Law
ICE ‘Unwilling’ to Share Details After Agent Killed Suburban Man During Immigration Operation, Pritzker Says
FBI investigators on the scene of a fatal ICE shooting in Frankin Park on Sept. 12, 2025. (WTTW News)
Gov. JB Pritzker on Monday criticized federal immigration authorities over a lack of transparency days after one of their agents fatally shot a man during a traffic stop in suburban Franklin Park.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers on Friday targeted Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez,
whom the agency claimed resisted arrest and dragged an ICE agent a “significant distance” with his car before being fatally shot.
Numerous public officials have since called for more information about the incident and blamed the Trump administration for stoking fear in immigrant communities through expanded ICE operations.
“We need more information,” Pritzker said at a press event Monday morning in Chicago. “We’ve asked ICE for all of the information around it, they have given very little.”
“If this were the Chicago Police Department, if this were the Sheriff’s Office in Cook County, if this were Illinois State Police, you would have had a lot more information already released,” the governor added, “but apparently ICE is unwilling to provide the transparency that I think the American public and the public here deserves.”
According to a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, ICE agents targeted Villegas-Gonzalez, whom they claimed had a history of “reckless driving,” though the agency did not specify what exact crimes he has been charged or convicted of.
He allegedly refused to follow the agents’ commands and drove his car at law enforcement, striking one agent.
The department said that agent was “fearing for his own life,” and fired shots, killing Villegas-Gonzalez. The agent survived but suffered serious injuries, according to DHS, though Pritzker on Monday said he’s received no further word on their status.
“It’s important for us to know that,” he said, “as well as, what were the circumstances that were leading them to pursue this person in the way that they did?”
Pritzker claimed Villegas-Gonzalez was returning to his home after dropping off his children at daycare when he was killed. He said state and local authorities don’t have the resources to investigate federal law enforcement, and if ICE is unwilling to share additional details, it’s possible “we may never really know what the truth is.”
Friday’s shooting came days after DHS launched “Operation Midway Blitz,” a new immigration enforcement operation across Chicago and Illinois that the department says was named in honor of Katie Abraham, a 20-year-old student at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who was killed in a January car crash involving an undocumented driver.
President Donald Trump has backed off his threats to send National Guard troops into Chicago, but Pritzker said ICE is continuing to gather additional agents in Illinois, though he said he believes it has taken the agency longer than expected to do so.
Still, ICE has been active, Pritzker said, adding that Friday’s shooting was a result of the agency’s officers “entering communities and putting people into fear.”
In a joint statement, Democratic U.S. Reps. Jesús “Chuy” García and Delia Ramirez and Illinois state Rep. Norma Hernandez said Friday the shooting caused “even more widespread fear in our community.”
They said they warned that ICE’s “aggressive tactics and disregard for due process” marked a “violent escalation.”
“But the important thing is, we should have transparency,” Pritzker said, “just like there’s frustration over (ICE agents) wearing masks and throwing people into vans in a way that does not seem American to me — it does not seem Constitutional to me — we now see that ICE is unwilling to share the details of what has happened.”
