OPINION:
This month, Loyola University freshman Sheridan Gorman, 18, decided to walk to the beach with her friends to get photos of Chicago’s skyline along Lake Michigan.
It was the very same shoreline Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker captured in a Facebook post in August to mock claims that it wasn’t safe.
As Gorman reached a lighthouse on a seemingly empty pier, a masked man jumped out at her, brandishing a gun, and fired a shot. The bullet hit Gorman in the back and exited through her neck, killing her instantly.
The man, Jose Medina, 25, is an illegal Venezuelan migrant who entered the country under the Biden administration, with an active warrant for failure to appear for a retail theft charge.
Mr. Pritzker, who attended a vigil in Chicago in late January after Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed during U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement protests in Minneapolis weeks earlier, has been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration’s deportation efforts.
He has claimed the country is becoming Nazi Germany and said ICE agents were “grabbing people off the street … and disappearing them.” He has defended his state’s sanctuary city policy, vowed not to work with ICE agents and alleged that any federal immigration enforcement action creates chaos, fear and confusion within his state.
After Gorman’s death, which would have been entirely preventable had Illinois authorities cooperated with ICE, Mr. Pritzker denied that his state’s policy of giving a haven to illegal criminals had anything to do with it.
“[Although] I agree there have been real failures, those failures, of course, extend beyond the borders of Illinois. They’re national failures,” Mr. Pritzker said. “A failure to have comprehensive immigration reform. A failure of the president to follow his own edict to go after the worst of the worst.”
Gorman’s family feels differently. In a statement, they argued that her death cannot “be explained away by broad references to failures somewhere else.”
“If there were failures — as the governor himself has acknowledged — then every one of them must be identified, examined, and addressed directly. The location of those failures matters less than the willingness to confront them honestly,” the family said.
They added that her death was not “random” or “inevitable.”
“And it cannot be treated as though it were,” they said. “We appreciate the efforts of law enforcement in making an arrest. But safety is not defined by how quickly a case is solved after the fact. It is defined by whether a young woman like Sheridan is protected in the first place. Our daughter was not in the wrong place at the wrong time. The system failed her.”
Yet, beyond conservative media, Gorman’s family’s pleas have fallen on deaf ears.
In the wake of her tragic death, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson focused his attention and official duties on an unveiling ceremony for the “Abolish ICE” snowplow.
On Saturday, he attended a “No Kings” protest, where he gave an interview to MS Now about his message to the community: “We need to end the assaults against working people, we have to end the assaults against immigrants.”
No mention of ending the literal assault and resulting death of Gorman. No mention of the 1,768 criminal illegal aliens Illinois has released since Jan. 20, 2025, including individuals convicted of homicide, assault and sexual offenses.
No mention of the 89 homicide victimizations in the city this year alone. No mention of Chicago’s severe and highly localized gang problem, with about 60 gangs operating 600 factions, terrorizing the city’s residents on the South and West sides.
Those are the assaults against his residents that Mr. Johnson has jurisdiction over and the capacity to resolve. Instead, his time and attention are focused on protecting the illegals and protesting President Trump.
A vigil was held for Gorman on Sunday. Mr. Pritzker was nowhere to be found.
Messrs. Johnson and Pritzker should be ashamed. Instead, they have become emboldened by the radical liberals in their party who are championing open borders, voting rights and taxpayer-funded welfare benefits for illegal aliens and no deportations.
It’s an “America Last” agenda driven by lunatics with Trump derangement syndrome and the goal of fundamentally dismantling our great country.
Sheridan Gorman, her family and the many other Americans who have lost family members at the hands of illegal immigrants deserve better from their own government.
• Kelly Sadler is the commentary editor at The Washington Times.
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