A Venezuelan migrant has been charged with the murder of Loyola University Chicago student Sheridan Gorman, police introduced Sunday, prompting outrage from Trump administration officers who branded her killing because the consequence of sanctuary insurance policies in Illinois.
Jose Medina, 25, faces prices of first-degree murder, tried murder and aggravated discharge of a firearm for the March 19 assault close to a pier at Tobey Prinz Beach, in keeping with Chicago police.
Federal immigration authorities mentioned U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued an arrest detainer naming Medina hours earlier than police introduced the costs.
The Department of Homeland Security mentioned Medina was taken into custody by the U.S. Border Patrol in May 2023, launched after which taken into custody once more two months later for shoplifting. He was charged with misdemeanor retail theft in that case, accused of stealing $132.50 of merchandise from the State Street Macy’s, county courtroom data present. An excellent warrant from that case is energetic.
Records present Medina was born in Venezuela and at one level lived in a short lived migrant shelter on the Leone Beach Park Field House, which closed in 2024. He was amongst hundreds of migrants who arrived in Chicago, many of them bused to the city by GOP Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in protest of former President Joe Biden’s border insurance policies.
Acting Assistant DHS Secretary Lauren Bis claimed in an announcement that Gorman was “failed by open border policies and sanctuary politicians” and urged Gov. JB Pritzker to not launch Medina, who was scheduled to make his first courtroom look Monday.
Pritzker’s workplace didn’t have any quick remark.
Legislation signed by Republican former Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner limits cooperation between native police and federal immigration authorities. The Illinois TRUST Act usually bars police from sharing data with immigration brokers or handing over folks in custody until a federal prison warrant is issued, a coverage lengthy denigrated by President Donald Trump and different conservative critics.
Gorman, 18, and her associates took an early morning stroll Thursday simply north of the Rogers Park campus, hoping to seize some photographs with a view of the skyline and doubtlessly the Northern Lights, her household mentioned in an announcement.
When they arrived, a masked gunman “emerged from the shadows” and fired a single shot as they fled, in keeping with a Chicago police report. One of Gorman’s associates who witnessed the shooting instructed the Chicago Sun-Times that “it didn’t seem like it was intentionally targeted toward any of us.”
The associates ran in several instructions when the shot was fired, however returned once they noticed Gorman on the bottom. She had been shot in her torso and was pronounced dead at the scene, officers mentioned.
In an announcement, Gorman’s household mentioned they had been “gravely disappointed by the policies and failures that allowed this individual to remain in a position to commit this crime.
“When systems fail — whether through release decisions, lack of coordination, or unwillingness to act — the consequences are not abstract. They are real. And in our case, they are permanent,” Gorman’s household mentioned. “This case must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of both state and federal law. There can be no gaps, no shortcuts, and no second chances that put others at risk. Accountability must be complete.”
The household insisted “we will not allow this to be dismissed as ‘wrong place, wrong time.’ This was not random misfortune. This was a violent and preventable act.”
