In a glaring example of defying the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, Chicago officials ignored immigration detainers and released hundreds of jailed illegal aliens back into the crime-ridden city during 2025.
The news comes as the Venezuelan migrant accused of killing Loyola University student Sheridan Gorman pleaded not guilty to murder charges last week, and Chicago-area schools used taxpayer funds to bus students to quasi-anti-immigration enforcement May Day protests in the city on Friday.
Gorman’s March 19 death brought the Windy City’s sanctuary policy failures to a head, despite a lack of media coverage by mainstream media outlets in the Democratic stronghold.
In many Blue States, including California, Virginia, New Jersey, Oregon and others, sanctuary politicians have passed laws that bar local law enforcement and jails from cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Illinois state law also requires releasing detained migrants rather than handing them over to immigration enforcement without a federal warrant.
America First Legal obtained and reviewed public records of arrests and found Cook County officials released more than 400 illegal immigrants who were picked up on criminal charges and had active ICE detainers.
America First Legal’s data covers January to December 2025. Records show Cook County released most of the illegal immigrants federal authorities wanted to take into custody. The county transferred 86 jailed illegal immigrants to federal custody in 2025.
“By releasing hundreds of illegal aliens despite explicit ICE detainers in just one year, sanctuary laws endangered American lives,” Will Scolinos, an America First Legal attorney, told Fox News Digital. “The tragic murder of Sheridan Gorman is the predictable outcome of pro-illegal alien madness that has infiltrated the Blue States.”
Illinois law generally bars state and local law enforcement from honoring ICE detainers, meaning they won’t notify ICE of an inmate’s release or hold them beyond their scheduled release so ICE can coordinate taking them into custody.
Instead, illegal immigrants who have been arrested for a crime are released back into the community, particularly if it’s a low-level crime such as theft or they meet conditions for bail.
The policies not only cause chaos on the streets, with anti-ICE protestors interfering in ICE arrests of criminal illegal aliens, but they often lead to more crime.
In the case of Gorman’s accused killer, Jose Medina-Medina, 25, was arrested for shoplifting in Chicago in June 2023 but freed from jail.
The illegal immigrant from Venezuela lived in a nearby migrant shelter at the Leone Beach Park fieldhouse in Rogers Park in 2023. After his shoplifting arrest, he failed to appear for court hearings related to that case.
The judge issued an arrest warrant, which remained active until the alleged murder, but police never pursued finding him. Instead, he remained free in Chicago until being arrested in connection to Gorman’s death.
Medina-Medina is accused of fatally shooting 18-year-old Gorman, a freshman at Loyola, near Chicago’s waterfront in the early morning hours of March 19.
Gorman’s New York-based parents were at his arraignment hearing, vowing to fight for justice while grappling with the failures of Illinois’ sanctuary policies.
“There were laws already in place, there were mechanisms already in place, and somehow they were not enforced in a way to prevent this from happening,” Thomas Gorman, the father of the slain student, said following the hearing. “This is not a policy debate; this is a failure.”
Medina-Medina illegally entered the United States in 2023 and was apprehended but released into the country by the Biden administration. Medina-Medina was among the thousands of migrants bused to Chicago during the height of the border crisis and ended up at a Chicago migrant shelter.
During his arraignment hearing on Wednesday, April 29, Medina-Medina pleaded not guilty to murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault, aggravated discharge of a firearm, and illegal possession of a weapon. He also faces a federal charge of illegally possessing a firearm.
Gorman’s parents addressed reporters after the hearing, surrounded by supporters holding her picture.
The Gormans have called their daughter’s death “preventable” and cited failures by Chicago officials to enforce existing laws as the reason for her death.
“It’s an empty seat at the table,” Thomas Gorman said. “It is silence where there used to be laughter. It’s waking up every day knowing that your child is gone.”
Sheridan’s mother, Jessica Gorman, said her death has awakened “mama bear.”
“She really mattered. And we’re going to get justice for her,” Jessica Gorman said.
Details from an earlier detention hearing for Medina-Medina on April 3 revealed that Gorman was walking on the Rogers Park pier with her friends. Prosecutor said she looked around a lighthouse and saw a man, later identified as Medina-Medina, was there.
Gorman then walked back toward her friends and mouthed, “There’s a man behind the lighthouse,” at which point the masked suspect began chasing them. Medina-Medina was later identified through surveillance footage, which tracked him to a nearby apartment building.
A building engineer told police that he knew the suspect who had a “very distinct limp and gait.”
The murder also reignited the feud between President Donald Trump, who has blamed Illinois’ sanctuary policies for Gorman’s death, and Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, who has used inflammatory rhetoric to condemn immigration raids across the country.
President Trump vowed to carry out mass deportations as a campaign promise. The Trump administration got to work as soon as Trump began his second term on Jan. 20, 2025.
But the efforts have met widespread resistance in Blue cities and states across the country and sparked lawmakers to hold funding for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security hostage for nearly 80 days in a standoff over ICE reforms.
DHS surged ICE and Border Patrol agents to the Windy City as part of Operation Midway Blitz, which began in September and lasted for several months.
Border Czar Tom Homan and U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials have maintained that the safest way to arrest and remove criminal illegal aliens from our streets is by lodging arrest detainers.
