Following fatal shootings involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Houston and Maine, Chicago immigrant rights advocates say the incidents underscore their calls to abolish ICE and restrict enforcement tactics that have already caused harm in Illinois.
The two shootings happened less than a week apart, both during attempted traffic stops, intensifying scrutiny over the tactics used in immigration enforcement. The Trump administration reacted with mixed signals over ICE’s use of traffic stops, with administration officials directing agents to suspend most stops before President Donald Trump said he wanted them to continue.
The incidents have resonated with Chicago-area advocates who point to the September killing of Silverio Villegas González, who was fatally shot by an ICE agent during an attempted traffic stop in Franklin Park, and the October shooting of Marimar Martinez by a Border Patrol agent.
For immigrant rights advocates, the debate over traffic stops is just one piece of what they describe as a broader approach to immigration enforcement.
Brandon Lee, spokesperson for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said limiting one tactic doesn’t get at what advocates see as the root issue: the Trump administration’s efforts to instill fear in immigrant communities and carry out mass deportations.
“All tactics that Trump is using, whether it’s traffic stops or taking people as they’re going to and from court, or taking people at check ins, all of it has the same end result, which is families being separated, which is communities being disrupted. And, in some cases, it’s fatal,” Lee said.
“We’re not looking at it as like them abandoning one tactic makes our communities any safer because they still have billions of dollars and a wide range of other tactics at their disposal.”
While Lee said advocates continue to call for abolishing ICE, that remains unlikely under the Trump administration.
Meanwhile, he said, Congress and state officials can put “meaningful guardrails” on ICE. That could include protections for immigrants whose work authorization or deportation protections are at risk.
Lee said advocates are also want timely processing of DACA renewals, and protections for immigrants who could lose legal status because of federal policy changes, including Haitians and others whose temporary protected status may be revoked.
At the state level, Lee said it’s important that officials enforce two Illinois laws: one prohibits local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities, the other prevents federal immigration agents from making civil arrests at courthouses.
Kayla Nguyen, media co-chair of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, said the recent shootings reflect what her group sees as a broader pattern of enforcement practices that disproportionately harm Black and Brown communities.
Her group, which hosted a vigil Wednesday night for the victims in Houston and Maine, has demanded an end to what they call pretextual traffic stops — meaning, her group says, when officers pull over drivers for a minor infraction as an excuse to fish for more serious crimes.
“We believe that traffic stops [by ICE] should end, period,” Nguyen said. “Of course, these kinds of murders are not just related to traffic stops. They’re linked to broader repression that exists against the immigrants rights in general.”
She agreed with Lee that state officials need to continue enforcing state laws that protect immigrants and mitigate ICE’s use of force.
The 18-member Illinois Legislative Latino Caucus also condemned the recent shootings and called for an end to what it described as escalating immigration enforcement in Illinois. The caucus pointed to concerns about ICE activity near courthouses.
“The persecution of our immigrant community needs to stop,” the caucus said in a statement. “ICE needs to leave our cities and leave our communities alone. We need to stand up and fight against the extremists in our country, because our immigrant neighbors deserve to feel protected and safe in our communities.”
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., also called for accountability following the shootings in Houston and Maine, saying there should be “full, fair, independent investigations” into the deaths. He urged the Department of Homeland Security not to deport witnesses before they can participate in investigations.
“We must rein in ICE abuses before another life is lost,” Durbin said.