The first victim of Chicago ICE crackdown is a father of two who was living a quiet life in the United States

Author: Renee Hickman and Lisbeth Diaz

CHICAGO/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – When Silverio Villegas Gonzalez showed up 12 minutes late for work at Tom & Jerry’s Gyros restaurant on Chicago’s northwest side, his manager knew something was wrong. The short order cook always lets others know if he is late, even if he is only five minutes late.

Earlier that morning, Villegas Gonzalez, 38, was shot and killed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents shortly after he dropped off his children at a school and daycare in suburban Franklin Park. Agents tried to arrest him as part of a massive immigration sweep launched by US President Donald Trump. Villegas Gonzalez was the first victim of the Chicago crackdown.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement after the Sept. 12 incident that Villegas-Gonzalez, “an illegal alien with a criminal record” and a “history of reckless driving,” drove his car at agents, causing one agent to fear for his life and shoot Villegas-Gonzalez.

The Department of Homeland Security told Reuters on Friday it would conduct its own investigation into the incident after the first responding agency completed its review. Franklin Park police and the FBI both responded to the shooting, but it was unclear which agency was investigating.

The FBI declined to comment, saying it lacked the personnel to respond to media inquiries because of the government shutdown. Franklin Park police did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.

The conservative boy from IRIMBO

Reuters interviews with family and colleagues and a review of public records paint a more nuanced picture of a man who left his quiet village years ago in search of economic opportunity and worked long hours to support his children. A man recovering from liver disease caused by alcoholism becomes a woman’s steadfast companion.

“He was very soft-spoken,” said restaurant manager Ashley Alekna, who described him as a kind, reliable presence during 11-hour shifts in a kitchen filled with boisterous personalities, cooking for crowds that streamed in from the community college across the street.

When Villegas Gonzalez was growing up in the small town of Irimbo in the Mexican state of Michoacán, his partner Blanca Mora made a similar impression.

Maura said they began greeting each other in the city as teenagers, meeting and chatting on street corners near her grandparents’ house.

People often left Irimbo to pursue opportunities outside the town, including Villegas-Gonzalez’s older brother, Jorge.

Jorge first went to the United States in 1998 and remembers his brother watching him walk away.

“He was still a kid,” Jorge said. “He hid so I wouldn’t see him cry.”

father of two

In 2007, as President Felipe Calderon’s violent war against drug cartels deepened, Silverio followed his brother north and became part of an influx of more than 348,000 Mexican immigrants to the United States that year, U.S. census data shows.

Villegas Gonzalez found work in restaurant kitchens, where 46 percent of chefs and 31 percent of chefs in the country are foreign-born, according to recent data from the National Restaurant Association.

He met a woman and they had two sons. Jorge Villegas Gonzalez said his brother often struggled to pay his bills.

Between 2011 and 2019, Villegas Gonzalez was cited for multiple traffic violations, including one for speeding more than 30 mph over the speed limit. He was also ticketed for driving an uninsured vehicle with a damaged taillight. He has no criminal record.

He later told Alekna that his drinking during those years led to a diagnosis of liver disease. Doctors told him it would kill him if he continued to drink.

Colleagues and Mora said he had been sober for more than a year when he died.

Mora lost contact with Villegas Gonzalez after she moved to the United States, but she eventually moved there too, looking for her mother who had left Mexico years earlier to better raise her three children. She never found her mother, she said, but she found love for the reserved boy in her family.

When he fell ill, she visited him and the two later became a couple. Villegas Gonzalez, his two sons, Mora, and her 13-year-old daughter ended up living together in Franklin Park.

franklin park family

Mora said Villegas-Gonzalez took his sons to the library three times a week to play with Legos and banned cell phones at the dinner table so the newly integrated family could focus on each other.

Alekna said he started opening up to his colleagues, making little jokes throughout the day. When his youngest son celebrated his birthday, they baked him a Minecraft video game-themed cake with green frosting.

The morning Villegas-Gonzalez was killed, he dropped off his older son at Paso Elementary School in Franklin Park and then sent his younger son to Small World Learning Center around the corner.

Minutes later, surveillance video from a nail salon showed ICE agents pulling him over to the curb, where everyone was leaning against the front car window. Villegas-Gonzalez backed up and tried to drive away, and the agent on the passenger side gave chase on foot. As Villegas Gonzalez drove forward, the agent on the driver’s side was not visible.

In separate surveillance footage from another nearby business, two gunshots can be heard around the same time. Villegas-Gonzalez soon crashed into a parked delivery truck, police records and body camera footage show.

A few hours later, Jorge Villegas Gonzalez was driving a minibus through the streets of Irimbo when he received a call saying his brother had died.

Villegas-Gonzalez’s two boys were placed in foster care, Mora said.

“When he closes his eyes at night,” she said, “he’s thinking about the kids.”

(Reporting by Renee Hickman in Chicago and Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico City; Editing by Emily Schmall and Michael Learmonth)