Loyola Student’s Murder Exposes Cruelty of Democrats’ Anti-ICE Extremism

Yet another innocent American is dead at the hands of a violent criminal illegal alien – this time an 18-year-old freshman at Chicago’s Loyola University named Sheridan Gorman. But despite the growing pile of victims nationwide, Democrats are only doubling down on their opposition to immigration enforcement.

On the morning of March 19, Gorman and a few friends were walking in the quiet Rogers Park neighborhood near a Lake Michigan beach when she spotted and pointed out a masked figure. Then, 25-year-old Jose Medina-Medina, “displayed a gun and fired a shot at the group of students running away,” according to NBC News. “The bullet hit Gorman in the back and exited through her neck.” She was pronounced dead at the scene.

As the Chicago Sun-Times later reported, Medina-Medina entered the United States illegally under the Biden administration in 2023. Shockingly, despite requesting to be deported back to Colombia, Biden border officials in Texas “bused him to Chicago” – where he stayed in a migrant shelter at taxpayer expense. That same year, he was charged with shoplifting. He skipped the court hearing, and a warrant was issued for his arrest – but because of soft-on-crime Democrat policies in Illinois, he remained free.

Medina-Medina is originally from Venezuela but came to the United States from Colombia, where he suffered major head trauma from an injury sustained during a robbery. That injury left Medina-Medina unable to read or write, and he had to relearn how to walk and talk.

In other words, a mentally handicapped individual with a history of violent crime crossed the border illegally and then requested to be deported back to his country of origin. Instead, Democrat officials transported him all the way to Chicago, where he immediately committed another crime, but “sanctuary” policies protected him from deportation. Three years later, he murdered Sheridan Gorman in a random, senseless act of violence.

Those basic facts should be enough to shame every open borders advocate and anti-ICE agitator into admitting the deadly consequences of their policies – along with reminding decent Americans why Democrats’ “compassion” toward illegal aliens is in fact cruelty toward law-abiding Americans. At the very least, Gorman’s murder should be a reminder of why the Trump administration’s efforts to deport criminal illegal aliens are so important.

But this tragedy has apparently had no effect whatsoever on Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, and other Prairie State Democrats.

It took Pritzker five days to respond to the murder – and when he did, he shamefully attempted to shift blame to the Trump administration. Pritzker has previously stated that ICE – which very well could have deported Medina-Medina years ago were it not for Chicago’s status as a sanctuary city – “should absolutely be abolished.” He further slandered the ICE agents working to get criminals like Medina-Medina off the streets as Trump’s “secret police.”

“What happened to Sheridan cannot be reduced to a ‘senseless tragedy,’ nor can it be explained in general terms about public safety,” Gorman’s family responded, ripping into both Johnson and Pritzker. “Our daughter is not a policy debate. She is a life that was taken, and that demands accountability.”

Johnson, a former teachers’ union organizer who supports defunding the police, has previously asked city cops to track ICE and report agents to Cook County for prosecution. “ICE must be abolished,” Johnson said after the death of anti-ICE activist Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

Even after Gorman’s death, Johnson stated, “I want to take this moment to reiterate that Chicago does not want ICE on our streets, in our airports, nor in our city. Chicago believes in abolishing ICE.” In a moment of incredible tone-deafness, Johnson also said that Gorman’s murder would not be slowing down the city’s work to welcome any illegal alien who wants to take up residence there.

“This tragedy is not going to deter us from our work,” the mayor said. “In fact, it’s going to challenge us all to double down on our efforts to ensure that we are protecting every single individual across neighborhoods.” That apparently does not include protecting innocent college students from being killed by illegal aliens.

But undoubtedly the most shocking – and revealing – comment came from Democrat Alderwoman Maria Hadden, who told Fox32’s Chicago Live that Gorman “might have startled this person at the end of the pier unintentionally.” Perhaps no comment in recent memory so perfectly captures the cruel and callous nature of Democrats’ twisted ideology. Medina-Medina, lying in wait in the dark, murdered Gorman in cold blood, but Hadden disgustingly blamed Gorman for “startling” her murderer. (Hadden later walked back her remarks following widespread outcry.)

For the American public, Gorman’s murder – and the Democrat response to it – should be a wake-up call. Opportunistic liberal politicians like Pritzker and Johnson have seized on sensationalist media coverage of ICE operations as a wedge issue to divide the public on immigration enforcement. They hope that by competing with one another for who can be the most radical anti-Trump “resistance” figure in the country, they can advance their own political careers.

But that cynical opportunism has tragic consequences. Sheridan Gorman is dead today because Democrat partisans actively, intentionally, and repeatedly refused to enforce the law. At every opportunity, they prioritized the freedom of a criminal illegal alien over the safety of law-abiding citizens like Gorman. That should be the headline Americans remember from this tragedy.

AMAC Newsline contributor Matt Lamb is an associate editor for The College Fix. He previously worked for Students for Life of America, Students for Life Action, and Turning Point USA. He previously interned for Open the Books. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Examiner, The Federalist, LifeSiteNews, Human Life Review, Headline USA, and other outlets. The opinions expressed are his own. Follow him @mattlamb22 on X.