Gov. JB Pritzker ripped the feds Monday for clamming up about who’s investigating a fatal shooting by an immigration agent in Franklin Park — part of a larger lack of transparency over the use of force by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Spokespeople for ICE, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI wouldn’t say who’s probing the death of Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, who appears to be the first person shot and killed by an on-duty ICE agent since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January. Local authorities said the FBI was the lead investigating agency.
A witness told the Chicago Sun-Times that ICE has put out an inaccurate account of the shooting and questioned whether Villegas-Gonzalez’s death will be properly investigated.
The governor said his office asked ICE for “all the information around” the shooting. “They have given very little.”
State police often investigate the use of force by municipal police departments but “we don’t have the ability to have state or local resources focused on investigating the federal law enforcement agencies,” Pritzker said.
“This is the most unusual situation I’ve seen in my entire lifetime, where we have no transparency and the federal government is not policing itself. Even the offices of inspector generals are being dismantled under this administration. So we may never really know what the truth is,” the governor said.
Officials with ICE and Homeland Security didn’t return messages seeking comment on who’s investigating the Franklin Park incident or how many ICE-related shootings there have been in recent years.
An FBI spokesperson said the agency responded to the incident in Franklin Park and assisted law enforcement on the scene.
“The Department of Justice’s media policy prohibits the FBI from confirming or denying investigations, but as a general matter, we examine the facts with consideration of federal criminal statutes. We then proceed as appropriate, whether by investigating or referring the matter to the relevant partners,” the spokesperson said.
A Franklin Park spokesperson said the local FBI office is leading the investigation, deferring questions to the agency. A Department of Justice official wouldn’t comment.
ICE officials don’t provide data on agent-involved shootings like the Chicago Police Department and other municipal law enforcement agencies. Instead, the agency releases statistics on use of force by agents but they do not specify how many of those incidents involved a shooting. Still, the Franklin Park shooting appears to be the only ICE-related shooting mentioned in news reports across the country this year.
Villegas Gonzalez, a 38-year-old father and cook from Michoacán, Mexico, was shot by an ICE officer Friday after the agency says Villegas González tried to flee a traffic stop.
“One of the ICE officers was hit by the car and dragged a significant distance. Fearing for his own life, the officer fired his weapon,” ICE said in a statement released Friday. “The target of the enforcement operation was Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, a criminal illegal alien with a history of reckless driving.”
The agency’s statement also said: “ICE law enforcement is facing a 1000% increase in assaults against them as they carry out enforcement operations.”
Sergio, a Franklin Park resident who legally immigrated from Mexico, said he was driving past as Villegas-Gonzalez’s sedan swerved into a semi-trailer and two agents approached the crash. But Sergio said he didn’t see Villegas-Gonzalez dragging one of the agents behind his car.
Videos of the deadly encounter posted online now appear to further disprove that narrative, said Sergio, who only wanted to be identified by his first name.
He said he doubts that federal officials will conduct a comprehensive investigation or admit the initial statement was inaccurate because they’ve seemingly been able to act with impunity. “Why would they fess up to it, knowing that they can just get away?” he said.
Sergio said he’s concerned that a surge in enforcement will leave some people feeling they have “nothing to lose,” even those who are trying to go through the naturalization process. That could ultimately make matters worse, he said.
“If things don’t stop,” he said, “it’s only going to be a a few more days before people start fighting back.”
According to The Trace, a news organization that focuses on gun violence, ICE agents were responsible for at least 59 shootings across the country from 2015 to 2021. The Trace and other news organizations pried those figures out of the agency through public records requests and legal action, according to a story published last year.
Twenty-three of the shootings were fatal. ICE agents fired their guns 20 times at vehicles. And in 15 incidents, the person who was shot was apparently unarmed, according to a story last year by the publication.
According to a 2023 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, ICE and other Department of Homeland Security agencies were undercounting use of force incidents like shootings and never set up a way to analyze the data they had.
The Sun-Times reviewed DHS’s most recent reports on use of force, which the government defines as:
- An injury or death to an officer, suspect or bystander.
- Any time a firearm is discharged at a person.
- An intentional deployment of a “less-lethal device,” including a dog, against a person.
- Punches and kicks.
- Force that disables a boat or aircraft.
The reports don’t specify what kind of force was used and only give summaries.
In 2022, ICE agents were involved in 33 use-of-force incidents, including three that put a person in a hospital and four that were deadly, according to DHS. That year, ICE agents were injured in two incidents in which a person was armed and resisted arrest, the report said.
In 2023, ICE agents seriously injured nine people and killed two, DHS said. Armed suspects who were resisting arrest injured four ICE agents.
It’s unclear how many of those ICE uses of force and injuries to agents involved shootings and if any of those incidents resulted in disciplinary action against an ICE agent.
By comparison, police officers fatally shot six people and wounded another six last year, according to the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, which investigates possible wrongdoing by Chicago police officers.
COPA completed five investigations into fatal shootings last year. None of those officers was deemed to have violated the police department’s policies.
Complaints were sustained against officers in eight non-fatal shootings but officers didn’t face discipline in another five, COPA said.
ICE has more than 20,000 enforcement and support employees and the Chicago Police Department has about 11,500 sworn officers.
Contributing: Sophie Sherry, Violet Miller