“Many Other Things We Could Be Doing”: Jayapal Tells Murder Victims’ Parents Congress Is Busy
On June 30, 2026, the mother of an 18-year-old shot dead on a Chicago lakefront sat feet from Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and heard the subcommittee’s ranking Democrat call the hearing about her daughter a distraction. “There’s many other things,” Jayapal said, “that we could be doing other than this.”
The hearing was titled “Sanctuary Policies: Victims’ Perspectives.” The witnesses included Jessica Gorman, whose daughter Sheridan was killed in March, and Joe Abraham, whose daughter Katie was killed in a hit-and-run in January 2025. Both deaths trace back to men who were in the country illegally — and, according to federal officials, should have been in ICE custody rather than on the street.
Jessica Gorman answered Jayapal on the spot: “Thanks for telling me without telling me that you’re here but you don’t want to be … for telling me you don’t care.” Minutes later the hearing detonated into a screaming match between two congressmen. As of July 4, Jayapal has not apologized. Here is exactly what was said, and why the parents were in the room.
- 4thhearinghow many sanctuary-city hearings Jayapal said the committee had held — the number she called too many — House Judiciary transcript
- 18years oldSheridan Gorman, the Loyola Chicago freshman shot dead March 19, 2026 — ABC7 Chicago
- 20years oldKatie Abraham, killed with Chloe Polzin in a January 2025 Urbana hit-and-run — DHS / News-Gazette
- 30yearssentence for Julio Cucul-Bol, who pleaded guilty in the Abraham hit-and-run — News-Gazette
The remark that turned an ordinary subcommittee hearing into a national story came in Jayapal’s opening statement. As the ranking member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, she spoke early — before the grieving parents seated a few feet away had said a word. “Unfortunately, this hearing is the fourth time in this committee that we’ve had a hearing on sanctuary cities, the fourth time,” she said, according to the verbatim transcript. “There’s many other things that we could be doing other than this.”
“Unfortunately, this hearing is the fourth time in this committee that we've had a hearing on sanctuary cities, the fourth time … There's many other things that we could be doing other than this.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) · opening statement · June 30, 2026
Jayapal did open with condolences — “Let me start by offering my deepest condolences to you, Mrs. Gorman, and to you, Mr. Abraham” — before pivoting to the argument that the hearing was a waste of the committee’s time. She said she would rather the panel examine what she called “the unconstitutionality of the president’s executive order on eliminating birthright citizenship,” and asserted that research shows sanctuary policies “have actually saved lives and kept communities safer.” It was that pairing — the condolence, then the “but” — that the parents would seize on.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal tells the parents of those murdered by illegal aliens that she has better things to do: 'Unfortunately this hearing is the 4th time … There's many other things that we could be doing.'
The two parents at the witness table were not policy advocates. They were there because their daughters are dead. Jessica Gorman is the mother of Sheridan Gorman, an 18-year-old Loyola University Chicago freshman shot and killed on the Rogers Park lakefront on March 19, 2026. Joe Abraham is the father of Katie Abraham, 20, who was killed alongside her friend Chloe Polzin, 21, in a high-speed hit-and-run in Urbana, Illinois, on January 19, 2025. Civic Intelligence has told the Gorman case in full separately; readers can find the reporting on the Sheridan Gorman killing and the ignored ICE detainer on its own page.
Their testimony was blunt. “Explain why people here illegally matter more than your American citizens,” Jessica Gorman said. “Explain why sanctuary policies matter more than my Sheridan’s life.” She rejected the premise that the committee had heard enough: “You don’t want to hear four sessions on angel families? I’m sorry: You need to. You need to.” In one of the day’s most quoted lines, she said she was “thankful that my daughter was just shot … not raped and dismembered” — a measure of how low the bar had fallen for her.
“Katie was not a statistic. She was my daughter. She should still be alive today.”
Joe Abraham · father of Katie Abraham · June 30, 2026
Joe Abraham told the panel his daughter’s death was preventable and refused to let her be reduced to a data point. “Katie was not a statistic,” he said. “She was my daughter. She should still be alive today.” The morning after the hearing, he wrote publicly that hearing the testimony was “incredibly difficult” and that “Katie and Sheridan deserved so much better.”
As one of the parents who testified at that House hearing, it was incredibly difficult to hear. Katie and Sheridan deserved so much better.
The reason the parents were testifying about sanctuary policy — and not simply about crime — is a specific chain of decisions the federal government has laid out in writing. According to the Department of Homeland Security, the man charged in Sheridan Gorman’s death, Jose Medina-Medina, a 25-year-old Venezuelan national, was apprehended at the border in May 2023, flagged as a flight risk, and released with a notice to appear “due to lack of space.” He was arrested again in Chicago in June 2023, DHS says, but the city and county declined to honor ICE’s detainer under Illinois’ sanctuary law, and he was released without ICE being notified. He is now charged with first-degree murder and a federal gun count and was ordered detained pending trial in March 2026. Medina-Medina is presumed innocent unless and until he is convicted.
The statute at the center of it is the Illinois TRUST Act, signed under Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL), which broadly bars state and local police from holding people for civil immigration detainers, layered on top of Chicago’s Welcoming City ordinance under Mayor Brandon Johnson (D-Chicago). In March 2026, DHS publicly asked Pritzker and Chicago officials not to release Medina-Medina; the request, the agency says, went unheeded. In the Abraham case, DHS says the driver — Julio Cucul-Bol, a Guatemalan national it describes as previously deported — fled the scene at 78 mph and was later caught in Texas. Unlike Medina-Medina, Cucul-Bol’s case is closed: he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 30 years. DHS named its September 2025 enforcement surge in Illinois “Operation Midway Blitz” in Katie Abraham’s honor.
Medina-Medina (charged, presumed innocent): apprehended at the border May 2023, flagged a flight risk, released for “lack of space”; arrested in Chicago June 2023; ICE detainer declined under the Illinois TRUST Act; released. Now charged with first-degree murder in the Gorman shooting.
Cucul-Bol (convicted): a Guatemalan national DHS describes as previously deported; fled the Urbana hit-and-run that killed Katie Abraham and Chloe Polzin; caught in Texas; pleaded guilty; sentenced to 30 years.
The policy hinge: Illinois’ TRUST Act (Pritzker) and Chicago’s Welcoming City ordinance (Johnson) limit cooperation with ICE detainers — the mechanism critics say kept both men out of federal custody.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Governor JB Pritzker should be in jail for failing to protect ICE officers doing their jobs. Their sanctuary policies are getting people killed.
Paraphrased commentary · not a verbatim post
Truth Social · paraphrasing President Trump's October 2025 post on Chicago's sanctuary leadership
I am proud to announce that Chicago, Illinois, despite all of the radical opposition and obstruction from the Mayor and the Governor, has seen Car Theft, Shootings, Robberies, Violent Crime, and everything else, drop dramatically.
Paraphrased commentary · not a verbatim post
Truth Social · paraphrasing President Trump on federal enforcement results in Chicago
The hearing did not stay composed. Jessica Gorman is a constituent of Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), who introduced her to the committee. The exchange between Lawler and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) erupted into a shouting match on the dais. “You should be ashamed of yourself, Jamie. You’re a disgrace,” Lawler said. Raskin fired back: “You don’t belong on this committee. You should get the hell out of here!” The Daily Wire later reported that Lawler, off the immediate exchange, called the Democratic members an unprintable name.
The chairmen made clear the hearings would continue. Subcommittee chair Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) vowed to keep holding them “until sanctuary policies are rectified,” and Judiciary Committee chair Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) answered the “fourth time” complaint directly: “I’ll hold as many hearings as I want.” The confrontation, not the testimony, is what led much of the coverage — a fact the parents themselves noted with frustration.
In the days after the hearing, the story was driven not by Jayapal but by the parents. On Fox & Friends, the Gormans said the “deepest condolences” opening rang hollow once it was followed by an argument that the hearing shouldn’t be happening. “We need bipartisan effort, we do need change,” Sheridan’s father Thomas Gorman said, “and when we heard, ‘Sorry but,’ it’s just disrespectful.” Jessica Gorman put it more pointedly to Jayapal directly, in the line that became the hearing’s epitaph.
“Thanks for telling me without telling me that you're here but you don't want to be … for telling me you don't care.”
Jessica Gorman · to Rep. Jayapal · June 30, 2026
Jessica Gorman TORCHES Rep. Pramila Jayapal: 'Thanks for telling me without telling me that you're here but you don't want to be … for telling me you don't care.'
As of July 4, 2026, Jayapal has not apologized for the “many other things” remark, walked it back, or issued a public statement addressing the parents’ reaction. Her position at the hearing — that the country’s sanctuary framework makes communities safer, and that the committee’s repeated hearings are a poor use of its time — is on the record and unretracted. That silence is itself part of the story: a ranking member told two grieving parents, to their faces, that Congress had better things to do, and has let the statement stand.
Strip away the shouting and the framing, and the core facts are not in dispute. Two young women — an 18-year-old and a 20-year-old — are dead in Illinois. The men accused and convicted in their deaths were, according to the federal government, in the country illegally and outside ICE custody because of state and local sanctuary policies. Their parents came to Washington to say so. And the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, before they spoke, told them Congress had “many other things” it could be doing.
Jessica Gorman and Joe Abraham came to a House hearing to testify about daughters killed months apart in sanctuary Illinois. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) opened by calling the hearing a distraction from “many other things” the committee could do.
One man in these cases is charged and presumed innocent; the other pleaded guilty and is serving 30 years. What is settled is the enforcement record — apprehended, flagged, released, detainer declined — that put the sanctuary framework, and the officials who built it, squarely on the table.
The parents asked to be heard. A member of Congress told them, in effect, that she would rather be elsewhere — and, as of July 4, has not taken it back.
