Prominent Illinois Democrat breaks with progressives on crime, illegal aliens 

A noted Illinois Democrat is breaking ranks with progressives in Chicago over the Sheridan Gorman murder, calling for deportation of the alleged perpetrator to the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador.

Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza, who is rumored to be eyeing a Chicago mayoral run, made her comments as news broke the federal government is asking local officials to hold the criminal illegal alien for deportation.

“My heart goes out to the heartbroken family of Sheridan Gorman,” Mendoza said. “This sweet young Loyola freshman had a whole life ahead of her. Sheridan deserves justice. Let it begin this morning in the courtroom. Hold him. Prosecute him. Deport him to prison in El Salvador.”

Mendoza, who has served as Illinois Comptroller since 2016, posted in response to news that prosecutors had charged a Venezuelan migrant with the murder of Gorman, a freshman at Loyola.

The alleged perpetrator, a Venezuelan national in the U.S. illegally, was charged by prosecutors with first-degree murder and first-degree attempted murder, said Fox News.

Unlike other Illinois Democrats, Mendoza didn’t blast Republicans for politicizing crime and punishment issues in Chicago in the wake of Gorman’s murder.

Instead, she invoked El Salvador’s CECOT facility, the same maximum-security mega-prison where the Trump administration sent MS-13 and Tren de Aragua members under its deportation policy.

In a city and state whose Democrat establishment has spent the last year filing lawsuits against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, passing courthouse sanctuary legislation and running Senate primaries almost entirely on anti-deportation messaging, that’s a significant break with the progressive block that seems to have a stranglehold on power.

The politics behind Mendoza’s statements, however, are shared by many Hispanics, who make up a third of the city’s population and are mostly Mexican American, Catholic and working class.

They are also deeply skeptical of the progressive agenda that has defined the Johnson administration, with turnout showing an uninvolved electorate.

In the 2023 mayoral election that gave current Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson power, a University of Illinois Chicago study estimated just 20.5% of Hispanic registered voters cast ballots, compared to 61.1% of white voters, reported local NBC News 5.

Most importantly, Hispanics have never been given a seat at the table by Chicago’s Democrat machine.

Mendoza, 53, with deep roots in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood – the heart of the city’s Mexican-American political community – could change all that.

In July 2025 she announced she would not seek re-election as comptroller, setting up a potential mayoral bid while sounding like a candidate.

“I’m going to figure out what the right move is for our family, for our city, our state, find out where I’m needed most, that next biggest challenge that I need to take on,” Mendoza said, according to Capitol News Illinois.

Previously, she served as city clerk in Chicago from 2011 to 2016.

And Mendoza isn’t the only Chicago Democrat who has broken ranks on public safety.

Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke, who has been in office barely 15 months, has drawn fire from the city’s progressive apparatus for her aggressive approach to prosecuting criminals.

Conservative Paul Vallas, who came within three points of defeating Johnson in the 2023 mayoral runoff, wrote last week that Burke represents a threat to what he calls Chicago’s “Criminal Industrial Complex.”

“Convictions are vacated,” Vallas said. “Civil suits follow. The city is forced to hire expensive law firms to defend the cases. Multi-million-dollar settlements are paid. Private attorneys grow richer and richer. Meanwhile, the city’s financial condition continues to take one massive hit after another.”

Vallas said Burke has been less willing to give perpetrators the progressive get-out-of-jail-free card and this is hitting the “Complex’s” economy hard with contingency-fee recoveries of 45% no longer available to progressive attorneys and community organizers.

As for Mendoza, she recently blasted the city for fault in the case of firefighter Michael Altman, who was murdered by another product of what critics call Chicago’s revolving-door criminal justice system.

The alleged murderer, Sheaves Slate, 27, has been arrested three times since July, was on court supervision since October following a guilty plea to retail theft and had an active arrest warrant for failure to appear on theft and drug charges, reported local CBS News.

“It didn’t have to happen because a guy who has been a repeat criminal offender comes in and out of this system,” Mendoza told reporters just days ago. “It had to get to a point where one of our heroes was murdered for us to take action.”