Jessica Gorman told Congress this summer about the killing of her 18-year-old daughter, Sheridan Gorman, in Chicago. Her testimony put a fatal March shooting into the center of the fight over Chicago and Illinois sanctuary policies, with the family arguing that the system failed before the gun was ever fired.
House Judiciary Committee testimony
“If someone felt invisible, Sheridan saw them,” Jessica said in her testimony to the House Judiciary Committee. She also described a childhood scene that stuck with her: Sheridan’s teacher said the girl would watch the buddy bench every day at recess, then rush over to take other children’s hands and pull them away to play.
That portrait of Sheridan came alongside a blunt accusation about what happened after Jose Medina entered the system. Medina illegally crossed the Biden administration’s open border into Texas in May 2023, was encountered by Border Patrol near the border, and was then released into the U.S. and bused to Chicago after he indicated he did not fear persecution if deported.
Jose Medina in Chicago
One month later, Medina was arrested on shoplifting charges at Macy’s in Chicago. Chicago police did not notify ICE when he was arrested, and they later released him. After he failed to appear in court, Chicago issued a warrant for his arrest and did not notify ICE about that warrant.
By March, that warrant was active when Medina allegedly shot Sheridan in the back of the neck as she was fleeing him and the gun he brandished. The sequence is the part policy debates often skip: release, arrest, release again, then a warrant that stayed inside the local system while the case moved toward violence.
Sanctuary policy fight
Maria Hadden said Sheridan was in the “wrong place at the wrong time” and may have startled her killer, a line that shifts the debate away from ideology and toward timing, proximity, and the gap between local custody decisions and federal notice. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson brags about the city’s sanctuary policies, and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is proud of the state’s sanctuary policies.
Pramila Jayapal called the hearing “the fourth hearing on sanctuary policies,” making clear that Sheridan’s case is now part of a recurring congressional fight rather than a one-off tragedy. For readers trying to track what comes next, the immediate answer is simple: the case is now a congressional pressure point, and the next move belongs to lawmakers deciding whether the testimony becomes action or just another round of speeches.
