ICE Shooting Near Chicago Shows Dangers of Trump ‘Midway Blitz’

As details emerged on Friday afternoon regarding the fatal shooting of a man in the Chicagoland town of Franklin Park by an immigration agent, a member of Congress said one thing was immediately clear: Just days into President Donald Trump's deployment of about 200 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to the nation's third-largest city, "Operation Midway Blitz is creating a climate of anxiety and fear" that has already turned deadly.

"This climate of fear increases the likelihood of circumstances that threaten our community's safety and the safety of our public safety officials, too," said Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.).

An ICE agent shot and killed Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, who was trying to evade arrest and resorted to driving his car into the officers and dragging one of them, the Associated Press reported. The officer shot Villegas-Gonzalez, who was pronounced dead at a local hospital, where the agent was also taken to be treated for serious injuries.

ICE agents had stopped Villegas-Gonzalez and said he had a history of "reckless driving" and was an undocumented immigrant.

Erendira Rendón, chief program officer at immigration and economic justice group The Resurrection Project, said in a statement that the "horrific incident in Franklin Park shows us the real danger that militarized enforcement creates in our neighborhoods."

"A community member is dead, and an officer was injured," Rendón said. “These are outcomes that serve no public safety purpose and leave entire communities traumatized. Safe neighborhoods depend on trust, not fear. When federal agents conduct unaccountable operations in our communities, everyone becomes less safe.”

The shooting forced administrators at a nearby junior high school to place the school on lockdown.

The local news outlet Block Club Chicago reported that video of the incident was not immediately available.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat who has vehemently condemned Trump's deployment of federal agents—and potentially troops—to Chicago, called for the Department of Homeland Security to release "a full, factual accounting of what’s happened today to ensure transparency and accountability."

Thousands of Chicago residents have marched against Trump's decision to deploy ICE—possibly followed by the National Guard—to the city in an operation that the White House has claimed is being carried out in honor of a woman allegedly killed in a drunk driving accident by an undocumented immigrant around 140 miles away.

Also on Friday, residents protested at ICE's Broadview Village processing facility, where Block Club Chicago reported "pushing and shoving" took place between about 30 demonstrators and ICE agents in riot gear.

Like Trump's broader mass deportation agenda, the White House has claimed Operation Midway Blitz is aimed at carrying out the arrests of the "worst of the worst" violent criminals, but an analysis by the CATO Institute found that 93% of immigrants booked into ICE facilities in the first months of Trump's term have no history of violent crime convictions, and 65% have no criminal convictions at all.

One observer said of the killing of Villegas-Gonzalez, "it was only a matter of time" before ICE agents deployed to US cities fatally attacked an undocumented immigrant or other community member.