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On September 12, Silverio Villegas González was gunned down by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer while fleeing a vehicle inspection in Franklin Park, a Chicago suburb. U.S. authorities later claimed that Silverio, a 38-year-old cook, had attacked a federal agent. He was born in Irimbo, a small town in Michoacán, Mexico, and migrated to the United States at 18. He was a single father. On the day he was killed, he had just dropped off his two children at school. “Silverio Villegas González was killed here by ICE,” read posters placed by members of his community, alongside flowers and photographs honoring his memory.
Silverio’s death did not kindle the national indignation in the United States sparked by ICE’s two more recent extrajudicial killings in Minneapolis. “Renee Good was killed on Jan. 7. Alex Pretti on Jan. 24. Federal agents killed both of them, and the administration labeled both of them terrorists,” narrated the New York Times on February 1, naming them with each repeated reference. The article even mentioned the 2020 murder —also in Minneapolis— of George Floyd. But, in the case of Silverio, “the death did not draw sustained national attention,” suggested the U.S. paper of record.
Silverio Villegas is a man stripped of his name and his backstory — someone whom even The Times identified only as “a Mexican immigrant.”