Immigration Enforcement Officers Targeted with Gang Bounties in Chicago
October 15, 2025
Erin Leone
Government Relations Associate
FAIR Take | October 2025
As threats against federal immigration authorities continue to rise, the Trump administration has consistently called for an end to inflammatory rhetoric villainizing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and vowed consequences for anti-ICE violence. Gangs and cartels are ignoring that message and have instead turned to singling out federal immigration officers with cash bounties in what Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem calls an unprecedented situation.
In perhaps the most chilling incident, earlier this month federal agents arrested Juan Espinoza Martinez in Illinois, a criminal illegal alien and member of the notorious Latin Kings gang. Martinez, an illegal alien from Mexico, allegedly offered cash bounties to capture and murder Gregory Bovino, the Commander at Large of the U.S. Border Patrol, during Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago. ICE launched that operation in September, targeting criminal illegal aliens in the sanctuary city and resulting in over 1,000 arrests to date.
According to a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois, Martinez is a high-ranking member of the Latin Kings, a street gang known for violent crimes and firearms and drug trafficking across Chicago. Per that complaint, the Latin Kings gang has been known to order murders of law enforcement officers, rival gang members, and its own members who do not follow orders. The complaint further alleges that Martinez organized a Latin Kings gang response after a shooting involving Border Patrol agents on October 4 in a Chicago park, reportedly dispatching gang members to patrol their “territory.” Last week, DHS released a screenshot of an unsettling conversation on the popular social media application Snapchat, showing Martinez offering a $2,000 bounty for information on Bovino, and a $10,000 reward “if you take him down.”
https://www.fairus.org/news/executive/immigration-enforcement-officers-targeted-gang-bounties-chicago