A 32-year-old Mexican illegal immigrant with prior convictions for domestic violence and assault was taken into custody on Wednesday after allegedly using his car to run over and drag a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer during an attempted stop in the Chicago suburbs, the Department of Homeland Security reports.
Jose Garnica-Naranjo was arrested one day after he violently resisted a targeted enforcement action. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin stated: “This illegal alien used his vehicle to assault one of our ICE officers, hospitalizing the officer.” He added that the officer has since been released and described the incident as part of a sharp rise in attacks, noting officers have faced a more than 1,600 percent increase in assaults.
The Details.
Agents observed Garnica-Naranjo leaving a residence in Chicago Heights on Tuesday morning and followed his vehicle at a distance before trying to pull him over. When they approached and ordered him to shut off the engine, he refused. DHS said that as officers tried to get him out of the car, he accelerated and drove off while an Enforcement and Removal Operations officer from Chicago was still partly inside through the driver’s window.
He then drove across a raised median containing trees, throwing the officer from the vehicle. While escaping, he also struck the injured officer with the car. The officer was taken to hospital with contusions, cuts, and scrapes; medical checks found no broken bones.
Official Response.
Mullin attributed the violence to anti-ICE rhetoric from Democrat officials, saying: “This is the result of anti-ICE rhetoric from sanctuary politicians like Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker.”
He called on the governor and other sanctuary politicians to “knock off this violent rhetoric and start cooperating with ICE before any more officers are injured in the line of duty.”
ICE concurred in an agency statement, warning that the incident was “the result of anti-ICE rhetoric from sanctuary politicians that empower illegal aliens to think they are above the law.”
