U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents weren’t wearing body cameras during the deadly shooting of a Mexican immigrant last week in the suburbs because a program requiring them was scrapped by the Trump administration.
In late 2021, ICE launched a $25 million body camera pilot program that was discontinued soon after President Donald Trump took office, Jason Houser, chief of staff for ICE from 2021 to 2023, said in an interview Tuesday.
“It would have put cameras on all 6,200 deportation officers,” Houser said. “So if they would have carried through with the timeline we had in place, they would all be wearing them.”
Two ICE agents weren’t wearing body-worn cameras when one of them fatally shot Silverio Villegas Gonzalez in a traffic stop Friday in Franklin Park, according to a federal official who asked not to be identified.
Although ICE’s budget has skyrocketed during Trump’s second term, the official confirmed body cameras haven’t been distributed to officials across the agency carrying out the president’s immigration enforcement agenda.
Chicago cops and suburban officers have long been required to wear the devices. Earlier this year, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration discontinued its four-year body camera program. The status of other federal agencies’ programs is unclear. A Trump executive order ended a mandate for federal agents to wear the devices.
Although ICE agents aren’t now required to wear body cameras, Houser pointed out they’ve been used in isolated situations this year, including a protest at an ICE facility in May in New Jersey where Newark’s mayor was arrested and ICE body cam video was used in a trespassing case against him.
Despite the lack of ICE body camera footage from the Franklin Park shooting, Houser said he believes there will still be a “robust” investigation into whether it was proper.
Under ICE policies, agents are instructed not to shoot at cars unless they’re in fear for their lives and have taken the safety of bystanders and other officers into account.
“There’s discretion in those tactical moments,” Houser said.
Jason Houser, former chief of staff for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, who says ICE agents he talks to “want to go about their job and do it anything in a just way and not become a political football.”
Houser questioned why the officers were assigned to that particular mission in the first place.
“When you have an administration that’s seeking quotas and media hits,” he said, “that puts officers at risk.”
Houser also said the Trump administration’s surge of immigration agents in Democrat-run cities like Chicago is leaving cities where the agents came from understaffed and unable to keep up with their work there.
The FBI, DEA, ATF and IRS have more agents working on immigration enforcement than ICE — depleting their core missions of fighting other types of crime, Houser said.
“Standing on a street corner in Franklin Park, stopping every other car, the percentage of you’re going to find somebody that then leads to a removal is extremely low,” he said. “None of this has to do with going after that 2% of people that have taken advantage of the immigration system that are convicted criminals — rapists, murderers — or the 1.5 million that have final orders of removal.”
Houser said the U.S. immigration system has been broken for decades and both parties are to blame.
“We can also question what went on in the Biden administration, right?” Houser said, referring to policies that “created surges and incentivized recidivism at the border.”
“We need to wake up and understand that we need [immigration] pathways for our economy to grow and for our communities to grow, and that has always been foundational to the American experience,” he said.
Silverio Villegas-González, 45, was a father and cook from Michoacán. A GoFundMe created on behalf of his family seeks support for his funeral and memorial costs.
The Department of Homeland Security, which operates ICE, has said Villegas Gonzalez, a Mexican national described as a devout family man, fled a traffic stop and dragged an ICE agent “a significant distance with his car.” The agent “sustained multiple injuries,” DHS said.
A witness, Sergio, has told the Sun-Times he witnessed part of the deadly encounter and didn’t see an ICE agent being dragged by Villegas Gonzalez’s car, adding that videos posted online appear to disprove the official narrative.
“If things don’t stop, it’s only going to be a few more days before people start fighting back,” said Sergio, who said he legally immigrated from Mexico and only wanted to be identified by his first name.
On Monday, Gov. JB Pritzker said he was frustrated at what he believes is a lack of transparency about how Villegas Gonzalez’s death is being investigated. And it’s still unclear who exactly is handling it.
In a statement, DHS spokeswoman Tracy McLaughlin said, “All shootings are initially reviewed by the appropriate federal, state, local, or tribal law enforcement agency principally charged with first response to the incident. Following a review of the incident by the appropriate investigative agency, ICE will conduct an independent review of the critical incident.”
McLaughlin said assaults on ICE agents are up “1,000%.”
According to a 2021 ICE firearms and use-of-force handbook obtained by the Sun-Times, an ICE firearms committee reviews shootings to see if they complied with the agency’s guidelines, and if any policies need to be changed. If necessary, the committee can refer the case to the ICE Office of Professional Responsibility for an additional review.
The bulletin noted: “ICE employees involved in a critical incident should anticipate an investigation by local authorities. They may be interviewed by local police or subpoenaed to a local grand jury or court proceeding.”
Dawn Catanzaro, a spokesperson for the village of Franklin Park, said, “the FBI Chicago field office is in charge of the investigation,” referring questions to that agency. An FBI spokesperson said the FBI responded to the shooting and assisted law enforcement on the scene, but wouldn’t comment on involvement in an ongoing investigation.
Contributing: Sophie Sherry