ICE Kills Mexican Worker! Rest in Peace, Mr. Silverio Villegas Gonzalez

As part of their anti-immigrant operation in Chicago called “Operation Midway Blitz,” which has been going on for several days now, agents in this case, called by some “ICE thugs,” killed 38-year-old Mexican Silverio Villegas Gonzalez, a single father, as he tried to escape arrest by ICE. Villegas Gonzalez had no weapons and no criminal record. As Congresswoman Delia Ramirez from the Chicago area said, Villegas Gonzalez was driving in Franklin Park, a suburb of Chicago, when ICE detained him after he dropped his son off at school, because he is dark-skinned or perhaps because he looks like someone with a minimum wage job. He was then shot to death. The congresswoman is calling for a full investigation, and we agree with her, so that the public can learn how ICE operates. There is a video that shows a very different situation from the ICE report, which says that Mr. Villegas was fighting with an officer and trying to run him over, which does not appear in the videos. Due to Trump's decision to remove body cameras from officers, agents believe they can invent their own version of the event, even though there were videos from a shopping center camera that supposedly show that Mr. Silverio was driving in the opposite direction, that is, trying to escape from the officers and not trying to run them over, which was the initial explanation given by ICE officers.

This is just one example of what happens in these kinds of operations where agents run wild and of the lies told by ICE officers when they say they are only looking for the worst of the worst. A report by the Cato Institute revealed that 65% of those arrested in Trump's raids have no criminal convictions and more than 93% have never been convicted of violent crimes.

Activists in Chicago have held a series of demonstrations demanding justice for Mr. Silverio, who worked for several years in a restaurant to support his 3- and 7-year-old children, for whom he had custody. Now these children have been left orphaned because of the current administration's racist operations as part of its campaign to attack the immigrant community.

As the congresswoman said, we must demand an investigation, starting with why and how these raids are being conducted and what really happened in the incident. It is time to withdraw funding from ICE and at least stop these kinds of raids and operations that do so much harm not only to the immigrant community but also to the entire community in these cities.

ANOTHER ABUSE BY ICE IN ARRESTING A WORKER WHO HAD SUED THE CHICAGO POLICE

Also a few days ago, as part of ICE operations in Chicago, Mr. William Gimenez Gonzalez was detained by ICE while on his way to the barber shop. The agents knew him by name and detained him. He subsequently disappeared for several days while his lawyer and other community activists searched for him.

In this case, it is very likely that the reason he was arrested was not directly related to his immigration status, but because Mr. Gimenez filed a lawsuit against the Chicago police and the million-dollar company Home Depot for an incident last year in which Home Depot private security guards arrested and beat him when he was simply looking for work outside, not inside Home Depot property. According to the lawsuit he filed, he was looking for work when the guards grabbed him and forcibly took him to a room inside Home Depot, beat him, and forced him to sign a paper admitting that he had entered Home Depot property. After that, he went to a lawyer and filed a lawsuit that is still pending. A few days ago, he was detained by ICE. The officers called him by his first name and last name, which obviously means there was a specific reason, most likely the filing of his lawsuit.

Mr. Gimenez is currently being held by ICE in another state, another clear example of how ICE does not respect the rights of immigrants. We hope that he will be released soon and can continue with his lawsuit against Home Depot and its police officers, demanding justice.