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COOK COUNTY, Ill. - A federal officer was hospitalized after an encounter with a driver in Chicago's south suburbs, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
ICE officer injured in Chicago Heights
The details:
ICE said its officers stopped Jose Juan Garnica-Naranjo on Tuesday during a targeted enforcement operation in Chicago Heights. The agency said Garnica-Naranjo is from Mexico and had previously been deported seven times in 2013.
ICE said officers asked Garnica-Naranjo to turn off the vehicle’s engine, but he refused. As officers tried to remove him, ICE said he drove away while an officer was partly inside the vehicle through the driver-side door.
The officer was thrown from the vehicle and then struck by it as Garnica-Naranjo fled, according to ICE. The officer was taken to a hospital with a leg injury and later released.
ICE said officers arrested Garnica-Naranjo later that day. The agency said his criminal history includes prior arrests for assault and domestic violence.
What they're saying:
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin blamed Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and other "sanctuary politicians" for what he described as anti-ICE rhetoric.
"This illegal alien used his vehicle to assault one of our ICE officers, hospitalizing the officer," Mullin said in a statement. "Thankfully, the officer has since been released from the hospital."
"This is just the latest example of the staggering rise in anti-ICE violence, with our officers facing a more than 1,600% increase in assaults against them. This is the result of anti-ICE rhetoric from sanctuary politicians like Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker. DHS is calling on Governor Pritzker and all 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."
Dig deeper:
ICE cited several other cases in Illinois involving arrests or detainers. They include a man accused of possessing eight Molotov cocktails in Mokena, a man arrested in connection with the killing of Loyola University student Sheridan Gorman in Chicago, and a man charged in a fatal DUI crash in Urbana.
The Source: The information in this story came from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.