Three American families buried their children. Now they’re asking one question no politician in Washington, D.C. wants to answer.
The parents came to Washington looking for answers.
And Donald Trump held one painful meeting that will break your heart.
A Mother’s Plea Nobody in Springfield Wants to Hear
Sheridan Gorman was a first-year student at Loyola University when she was shot and killed in Chicago in March. She was 18 years old. She was walking in a park with friends around 1:00 a.m. when the suspect approached her wearing a mask and armed with a gun. As she attempted to flee, he fired and shot her.
The Department of Homeland Security said the suspect, Jose Medina-Medina, an illegal alien from Venezuela, was released from custody months earlier despite an active Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer.
In May 2023, Medina-Medina was apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol and released into the country under the Biden administration. He was then released again on June 19, 2023, following an arrest for shoplifting in Chicago, Illinois. An outstanding warrant from that case sat ignored for nearly three years.
Sheridan’s mother, Jess Gorman, sat down on Fox News’ “The Story” and said what every grieving parent in her position has probably thought but never had the platform to say out loud.
“I don’t understand what these politicians are thinking,” Jess Gorman said Thursday.
“To me, things like that show that they value these undocumented migrants more than they value our American citizens, our American children. And honestly, you almost want to just make a plea: ‘Choose us. Choose my American child,'” Jess Gorman added.
Her husband Tom didn’t pull punches either. “I just think that when policies are in place that protect unvetted migrants who do commit a crime, there is a risk,” said Tom Gorman, Sheridan’s father.
“I have to live every day with a choice in my head. Was my daughter an unintended consequence of good policy or the consequence of bad policy? And I know the answer for me,” he said.
After the Gormans spoke out, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker’s office issued a statement to Fox News: “The family of Sheridan Gorman remains in Governor Pritzker’s thoughts as they grieve and navigate the unimaginable loss of their daughter.” Thoughts. Six weeks after a Venezuelan national released twice by government officials shot their daughter in the back.
And just days after the killing, Pritzker posted a video promoting “National Walking Day,” describing the sanctuary state of Illinois as “the best place to walk.” The backlash was immediate.
Virginia, Same Story, Different State
Stephanie Minter, 41, was killed on Richmond Highway in February. Abdul Jalloh, 32, was charged with the crime and had lived in the U.S. illegally for more than a decade, ICE said.
The alleged suspect, Abdul Jalloh, 32, had a criminal history of more than 30 arrests, according to DHS, including for rape, malicious wounding, assault, identity theft, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and pick-pocketing. Thirty. Prior. Arrests.
ICE previously lodged a detainer against Jalloh in 2020, and he was granted a final order of removal by a judge who found he could be removed to any country other than Sierra Leone. But without a country willing to take him, he walked free. And Stephanie Minter paid for that loophole with her life.
Cheryl Minter, Stephanie’s mother, went on *Fox & Friends First* and asked the most basic question imaginable.
“Isn’t that their jobs to keep us safe? And they’re just, they’re not,” Cheryl Minter said.
“They’re allowing all these people that just do horrendous crimes over and over again to stay in our streets, and they’re not even detaining them at all,” Minter said. “It’s just horrible that this keeps happening.”
“Stephanie Minter’s murder was absolutely preventable,” said Steve Monahan of the Fairfax County police union. Police had warned prosecutors repeatedly that Jalloh’s behavior was escalating. In 2023, he served only seven months for a stabbing incident in which the victim survived. Despite subsequent probation violations including a new malicious wounding charge, prosecutors and the defense reached an agreement that ultimately allowed Jalloh to walk away unsupervised instead of sending him back to prison.
Illinois Again: Katie Abraham
Joe Abraham sat in his Glenview, Illinois, home holding a photograph of his daughter Katie. She was 20 years old. Katie was violently killed on January 19, 2025. She was a passenger in a car stopped at a red light when an illegal alien, driving drunk at nearly 80 miles per hour, slammed into the back of their vehicle.
The driver, an illegal alien named Julio Cucul-Bol, fled the scene but was later apprehended. He ultimately pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including aggravated Driving Under Intoxication resulting in death and leaving the scene of a fatal accident, and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
But Katie is still dead. And her father has spent months watching the same sanctuary policies that failed his daughter protect the next criminal in line.
“Katie’s death was preventable. She was killed by a man, Julio Cucul-Bol, who entered and remained in our country illegally,” said Joe Abraham, Katie’s father.
Trump Showed Up. Politicians Issued Statements.
On May 8, President Donald Trump hosted Angel Mothers and Gold Star Mothers at the White House Rose Garden ahead of Mother’s Day. He didn’t send a press release. He showed up.
At the event, Trump told the mothers in attendance: “I just want to wish you all a very happy Mother’s Day. We’re going to have a great Mother’s Day.” “And for those mothers that lost their child, many of whom are with us today, the angel moms and others, Gold Star moms, we love you especially. We love you, maybe even the most,” he added.
After thanking the angel moms for coming, Trump said, “The angel moms have not been treated properly, but this president treats you properly. I can’t speak for others, but this one treats you properly.”
That line landed because it’s true. For years, these families got ignored by the pro-open borders Democrats and establishment RINOs who were busy crafting sanctuary policies, throwing the border open, and blocking mass deportations. The Gorman family had to watch Chicago name a snowplow “Abolish ICE” just days after their daughter was murdered. Jess Gorman addressed it directly: “When they’re naming trucks and laughing and joking several days after our daughter was murdered, we’re waiting in Chicago to claim her body.”
None of that is an accident. Sanctuary cities don’t just happen. Politicians write the laws, fund the policies, and ignore the detainers. And when the body count climbs, they issue statements about their “thoughts.”
The Pattern Nobody in Washington, D.C. Wants to Admit
What connects Sheridan Gorman in Chicago, Stephanie Minter at a Virginia bus stop, and Katie Abraham in Urbana, Illinois isn’t bad luck. It’s a system that was designed, vote by vote, to prioritize the rights of people who entered the country illegally over the safety of the Americans already living here.
Medina-Medina got released twice. Jalloh had 30 prior arrests and an ICE detainer from 2020. Cucul-Bol entered and stayed illegally while sanctuary politicians in Springfield ran interference for anyone who might have removed him.
But the Gorman, Minter, and Abraham families aren’t statistics. They’re parents who had to identify bodies. And they’re done being polite about it.
“I don’t understand what these politicians are thinking,” Jess Gorman said. The honest answer is that some of them understand exactly what they’re doing. They’ve just decided that the political cost of enforcing immigration law is higher than the human cost of not enforcing it.
Donald Trump harnessed the anger over the swamp, ignoring American families who lost children to illegal alien crime, to build the foundation of his MAGA movement.
These families are proving that calculation wrong. And they’re not going away.
Sources: Fox News, Department of Homeland Security, NBC Washington, Gateway Pundit, Fairfax County Police, CWB Chicago, Chicago Sun-Times, Deseret News, Fox 32 Chicago, Daily Wire, WUSA9