A Venezuelan Migrant Arrested by ICE While on Electronic Monitoring Under Illinois’ SAFE-T Act
A Venezuelan migrant charged with attempted murder for allegedly participating in a violent robbery aboard a CTA train found himself in an ironic predicament: he lost his freedom while exercising the very freedom granted to him under Illinois’ SAFE-T Act.
Wilker Gutierrez-Sierra, who was on electronic monitoring awaiting trial, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during one of his “essential movement” days, a provision of the SAFE-T Act that allows monitored defendants to move freely outside their homes two days per week.
The SAFE-T Act, a massive criminal justice overhaul that took effect in Illinois, permits anyone on electronic monitoring to leave their residence for up to two days weekly with little to no documentation required of their actual activities. While most defendants who go AWOL while wearing ankle monitors simply disappear, authorities know exactly where Gutierrez-Sierra ended up.
According to discharge papers filed by the sober living facility where Gutierrez-Sierra was residing, he was walking near the corner of 80th Street and Ingleside Avenue when five black trucks pulled alongside him. ICE agents emerged from the vehicles and took him into custody for deportation proceedings, the papers said.
Gutierrez-Sierra was awaiting trial on charges stemming from a February 2024 attack aboard a Pink Line train. Prosecutors said he and three other Venezuelan migrants who had been in Chicago for as little as one month lured a 49-year-old Cicero man to the back of a train car near Kostner Avenue around 4:45 p.m. on a Saturday.
According to prosecutors, Gutierrez-Sierra allegedly blocked the doorway to prevent the victim’s escape and obstructed other passengers’ view while a third man jumped on the victim and wrapped his arm around his neck. The third assailant squeezed the man’s neck until the victim soiled himself, lost consciousness, and collapsed to the floor, prosecutors said.
While the victim was being strangled, a fourth migrant allegedly reached into the man’s pockets and stole his phone and approximately $400 from his wallet. Prosecutors said one of the alleged assailants placed his hand over a CTA camera lens after the victim fell to the floor, but by then the security system had already recorded the entire attack.
Alert passengers realized what was happening and notified CTA workers, who held the train at the Pulaski station and kept the four migrants contained until Chicago police arrived to take them into custody.
Three of the four men were already on pretrial release for shoplifting charges at the time of the alleged attack. Judge William Fahy ordered those three detained as public safety threats. However, the judge rejected prosecutors’ request to keep Gutierrez-Sierra in custody, instead ordering him released on an ankle bracelet.
What initially seemed like a favorable outcome for Gutierrez-Sierra took an unexpected turn when the ICE convoy descended upon him as he exercised his SAFE-T Act rights.
A Cook County Sheriff’s Office report tucked away in Gutierrez-Sierra’s court file says that investigators assigned to retrieve his ankle monitor traced the device to 1930 Beach Street in Broadview, which turned out to be an ICE detention facility. The ankle monitor was successfully recovered, but Gutierrez-Sierra remained in ICE custody for deportation, according to the report.
An arrest warrant for Gutierrez-Sierra remains active in Cook County court records. The other three migrants are scheduled for jury trials in April.
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