This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Just days into Trump’s deployment of hundreds of federal immigration officers to Chicago, ICE agents fatally shot Silverio Villegas Gonzales after the 38-year-old father panicked and began to drive away in his car trying to evade arrest. Minutes earlier on Friday, Villegas Gonzales had dropped off his children at school. ICE claimed he dragged an ICE agent with his car; the officer then fired his weapon. Villegas Gonzales was unarmed and had no criminal record. He was born in Michoacán, Mexico, and worked as a cook.
The killing came as the Trump administration intensifies its immigration crackdown in Chicago under so-called Operation Midway Blitz, which DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin claimed would target, quote, “the worst of the worst.” The Cato Institute revealed earlier this year that 65% of immigrants arrested in Trump’s raids had no criminal convictions, and over 93% were never convicted of violent offenses.
Protesters gathered in the Chicago suburb of Franklin Park over the weekend demanding justice for Villegas Gonzales.
STEVE: This is not fair for our hard-working people, who come out here to this country to earn a living. And I just want to say God bless all. Hopefully it gets — best wishes for everybody. Hopefully everything gets better, situations. But we do need to tell ICE: Stop scaring our people.
AMY GOODMAN: Silverio Villegas Gonzales’s family has organized a fundraiser to help cover the costs of his funeral and burial. In a statement, they wrote he was, quote, “someone who always extended a helping hand, shared his smile freely, and showed up for those he loved — no matter the circumstances.”
As ICE agents swarmed the streets of Chicago, advocates also reported the abduction of Willian Giménez González on Friday. He’s a day laborer who’s suing off-duty Chicago police, working as security for Home Depot, for abusing immigrant day laborers. His legal team says he was taken into custody by ICE in retaliation for his lawsuit. This is Miguel Alvelo Rivera, executive director of Latino Union of Chicago, speaking Saturday at a press conference.
MIGUEL ALVELO RIVERA: In the initial stages of preparing the lawsuit, we made sure Willian and the other workers understood the potential risks of going public about what they had experienced. Once people know who you are and that you’re standing for justice, they might bother you more than before. Willian took a deep breath, and, in our group’s meeting, he said, “I know, but I’m not only doing this to just get justice for myself and my compas. I’m doing this because I don’t want anybody else to ever have to live through what I have lived.”
AMY GOODMAN: This all comes as President Trump is moving to deploy National Guard troops to Memphis, with threats that Chicago will be next.
For more, we’re joined by two guests. In Washington, D.C., Representative Delia Ramirez, Democratic congressmember from Illinois, is with us. She’s the first Latina congressmember to represent Illinois. And in Chicago, we’re joined by Kevin Herrera, legal director of Raise the Floor Alliance, an attorney for Willian Giménez González.
Congressmember, let’s begin with you and the killing of Silverio Villegas Gonzales. He was stopped in a traffic stop after bringing his kids to school. Explain what you understand happened next.
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: First of all, what happened to Silverio is absolutely devastating. What we understand is that the ICE report that they released and the footage we have seen does not match. ICE is saying that the agent had been dragged for a long distance. The footage shows that it was less than 100 feet. The footage also shows that there was an unmarked SUV that barricaded Silverio. I mean, the point is, ICE stopped a man right after he dropped off his child at school, because he’s Brown, because maybe he looked like he worked a minimum-wage job, and then shot him to death.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Congresswoman, the boss of Silverio in the hero shop where he worked claimed that he worked 11 hours a day, that he was a model worker. And your response to this continued criminalization of what is, essentially, many hard-working immigrants here in the country?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: I mean, Juan, not only that, what people haven’t talked about, that not only was he a father to a 7- and a 3-year-old, he had full custody of these children. These children were left orphans because of ICE and the action they took that morning. It is bone-chilling. People are asking in Chicago, and certainly all over the country, “If I get stopped because I’m Brown, if I get stopped dropping off my child, will my child see me get shot by ICE?” because there’s no justice, no accountability in this precise moment in what they’re doing. And that is a test, and, I think, truly devastating, of our justice system, that there are agents who can do whatever they want, and they don’t have to abide by any enforcement and accountability.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what’s been the response of the Chicago community, from the grassroots organizations to City Hall to the governor, in terms of these attacks and the threats of President Trump to bring in the National Guard in Chicago, as well?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: Well, first, Juan, we need a thorough investigation of what happened. The footage, the witnesses we have talked to do not match what the ICE reports show. I think in order for people to feel like justice has been served, we need to know what exactly happened, the protocols, what training, or lack of, these agents had, how many agents were there. I think it’s really important, because people are asking themselves, “If Silverio could get shot, what will happen to me?”
And so, I will say to you that people on the ground around the city, and certainly we’ve seen around the country, they are saying, “We want to see justice for Silverio. We want to know the truth.” And organizations around the city are doubling down, providing protection, rapid response, showing up. Senator Karina Villa in West Chicago, another part of my district, where a number of agents showed up and started surrounding factories and schools, literally showed up and said to ICE, “You do not get to be here. Show me warrants if you want to arrest someone.” So, that level of organizing, with the local electeds, the grassroots organizations, that is what people are counting on to feel like there’s some sense of community coming together to protect them.
But that’s why I’m talking about filing legislation that begins to defund ICE, but also starts putting parameters of accountability here in Congress, because we cannot allow what’s happening to Silverio or children who are being left in a car as they take their mother and father on a main street, as we saw in Chicago, as well, this weekend.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I’d like to bring in Kevin Herrera also, the lawyer for Willian Giménez González. Kevin, if you could talk about the circumstances of your client being abducted by ICE agents on Friday?
KEVIN HERRERA: Sure. Mr. Willian Giménez González is a brave, kind, hard-working man here in Chicago. And on Friday, he was on his way to the barber shop with his wife Mari, having worked a full week, to get in, you know, a little self-care and relaxation. They were stopped by ICE agents on their way into the barber shop. Those ICE agents told him his full name, asked him to confirm that he was indeed Willian Alberto Giménez González, and he confirmed that fact. When he chose to do so, they abducted him, took him into custody, and then he disappeared from contact with myself, with his wife for two days.
Mr. Giménez González, we believed, was in Broadview facility. I went there that same day, on Friday, to try and find him in the suburbs of Chicago. I received no acknowledgment at that correctional facility or the transfer processing center, I guess it is. And when I tried to speak to guards and tell them I was an attorney with a client inside, they wouldn’t acknowledge my presence. In fact, they waved their hands in my face. A day later, we gathered with Representative Ramirez, who’s on the call, as well as Representative Chuy García and Latino Union and supporters from his community, to call for information about him, to call for his release in front of that Broadview facility. Moments later, we received a phone call letting us know that he was in Broadview, but we got nothing more for the rest of the day. I filed a petition for habeas corpus at about 12:30 at night that night. But the following morning, I was told that he was moved out of state. So, that’s where we sit with Mr. Giménez González.
AMY GOODMAN: Kevin Herrera, can you explain his — is it a class-action lawsuit against police who were being security for Home Depot, and what that lawsuit is about?
KEVIN HERRERA: Sure. We believe Mr. Giménez González has received special attention from ICE, from the federal government, because of his role not in a class action, but as a plaintiff among four other day laborers, as well as an organizational plaintiff, Latino Union, which we filed in August ’24, or 2024, against Home Depot, the city of Chicago and off-duty police officers. Mr. Giménez González was one of among several individuals who was pulled into Home Depot, while they were off of Home Depot property, by private security guards. And we’ve mentioned before that Mr. Giménez González acts as a day laborer, so he was seeking work from customers in the public outside of Home Depot. But once he was pulled inside, he was taken to a back room, beaten, and then made to sign a paper saying that he had committed trespass.
So, the functions of this operation by off-duty police working as Home Depot security was to essentially force people who were undocumented into the criminal legal system by forcing them to sign papers. Throughout the process, the allegations have been that this was an abuse via the assault, this was an unlawful deprivation of rights under civil rights laws which don’t allow for false arrest, and also civil rights laws that don’t allow for false allegations of crimes. What’s ironic is that the ICE press releases around Mr. Giménez González’s arrest have pointed to his criminal record of trespassing, which stems from these abuses at the Home Depot, as a reason and justification for his apprehension and disappearance.
AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Delia Ramirez, you’re calling for the defunding of ICE?
REP. DELIA RAMIREZ: I am. I think it’s really important for us to understand $150 billion were just inserted into this organization, into this terror organization, that would be as big as the fifth-largest army in the world. They have no guardrails. There are no controls. They can do what they want. People, the family of Silverio, are asking: Who is investigating what happened to him? What will justice look like? And there’s no guardrails. I have said it before. It is time for us to start defunding them and also start establishing accountability, that is so desperately needed right now.
