Sheridan Gorman’s Mom Said Three Words to Chicago Democrats That Stopped Them Cold

Sheridan Gorman was 18 years old, out with friends on a Chicago pier, when a masked man stepped out of the shadows and shot her in the back.

Six days later, Brandon Johnson unveiled a city snowplow with "Abolish ICE" painted on the side.

Now Sheridan's mother is standing in front of a thousand people and saying three words neither Johnson nor JB Pritzker can escape: "Fight for justice."

Biden Let Him In. Chicago Let Him Stay.

Sheridan Gorman was a Loyola University freshman from Yorktown Heights, New York. She was 18 years old, a member of her campus Christian organization, studying business, and by every account a young woman who made people feel seen and valued wherever she went.

On March 19 – just after 1 a.m. – she was walking with friends near the pier at Tobey Prinz Beach in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood.

They were trying to see the Northern Lights.

The man hiding behind the lighthouse was Jose Medina-Medina, a 25-year-old Venezuelan national. According to prosecutors, the moment Sheridan spotted him and whispered to her friends that there was a man behind the lighthouse, he started chasing them.

He fired once. Sheridan was shot in the back. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

Two Releases. One Warrant. Zero Deportations.

The Department of Homeland Security lays out what happened next – or rather, what happened before.

On May 9, 2023, Medina-Medina was apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol at the southern border. The Biden administration released him into the country. He ended up in Chicago.

One month later, Chicago police arrested him for shoplifting $132 worth of merchandise from a Macy's on State Street. He was released. He missed his court date. A warrant was issued for his arrest.

That warrant was never acted on. Medina-Medina continued to walk the streets of Chicago for nearly three years.

DHS Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis stated that Sheridan "was failed by open border policies and sanctuary politicians who released this illegal alien twice before he went on to commit this heinous murder."

That is not Republican spin. That is the federal government's documented timeline.

The Men Who Own This

Chicago's Welcoming City Ordinance bars local police from cooperating with ICE in immigration enforcement. The Illinois TRUST Act does the same at the state level. When Chicago police arrested Medina-Medina for shoplifting in 2023, they were legally barred from picking up the phone and calling federal immigration authorities.

That is the policy Brandon Johnson has defended every single day he has been in office.

After Sheridan's death, ICE lodged a detainer asking Illinois officials not to release Medina-Medina from custody again. Whether that detainer will be honored – given that Illinois has released 1,768 criminal illegal aliens with active ICE detainers since January 2025 alone – remains to be seen.

Johnson waited nearly a week to publicly acknowledge Sheridan's murder. When he finally did, he called it an act of "senseless violence" and pivoted immediately to defending his sanctuary policies. He told reporters the Welcoming City Ordinance was passed "40 years ago by the first Black mayor in the history of Chicago" – as if the history of the policy absolves him of its present consequences.

Then he unveiled the snowplow.

Pritzker waited five days to speak publicly about the murder. When he did, he admitted there were "real failures" – then spent the rest of his statement directing blame elsewhere. "Those failures, of course, extend beyond the borders of Illinois," he said.

The Gorman family was not having it.

"We appreciate that he has now, five days after our daughter Sheridan's murder, finally spoken publicly about Sheridan," they said in a statement. "But Sheridan's death cannot be reduced to a general 'tragedy,' nor can it be explained away by broad references to failures somewhere else."

This Is Not the First Pier

Americans have watched this exact script play out before.

In 2015, Kate Steinle was walking arm in arm with her father along Pier 14 in San Francisco. A five-time-deported illegal alien – released from city custody despite a federal detainer request – shot her once in the back. She died in her father's arms. The shooter was acquitted of murder. San Francisco never changed its sanctuary policy.

In February 2024, Laken Riley went for a morning jog at the University of Georgia. A Venezuelan national who had crossed the border illegally, been released by the Biden administration, been arrested in New York, and been released again under that city's sanctuary policy – murdered her. The Laken Riley Act, requiring federal detention of criminal illegal aliens arrested for theft, became the first bill signed by President Trump in his second term.

The pattern is not complicated. A Democrat city shields a criminal illegal alien from deportation. The criminal illegal alien kills an American. The Democrat mayor calls it a "senseless tragedy" and blames someone else.

Sheridan's mother stood in front of a thousand people Saturday night and vowed to fight for justice and fight for change – for Sheridan, and for every family that comes next.

Brandon Johnson unveiled a snowplow. Jessica Gorman is building a movement. Share this with someone who still thinks sanctuary cities are harmless, and ask them to explain the difference.

Sources:

• Sophia Compton, "Slain college student's mother vows 'fight for justice' after illegal immigrant charged in Chicago killing," Fox News, March 29, 2026.
• "ICE Asks Governor Pritzker and Chicago Sanctuary Politicians to Not Release Criminal Illegal Alien Accused of Killing 18-Year-Old Loyola College Student," U.S. Department of Homeland Security, March 22, 2026.
• "Gorman family calls out Johnson and Pritzker following college student's killing in Chicago," Fox News, March 26, 2026.
• "Chicago Mayor Pulls Unbelievably Cruel Anti-ICE Stunt Mocking the Murder of Sheridan Gorman," RedState, March 25, 2026.
• "Illegal Accused of Murdering Chicago Student Reportedly Missing Part of Skull, Can't Read or Write," The Daily Caller, March 28, 2026.
• "Father of slain 20-year-old killed by illegal immigrant issues stark warning after Sheridan Gorman killing," Fox News, March 28, 2026.
• "Chicago's Sanctuary Policies Allowed a Girl to Be Murdered in Cold Blood," The Daily Wire, March 26, 2026.