'Send my Brother’s Killer Packing Back to Mexico,' Sister Urges Trump Administration
The victims of illegal alien crime are urging President Trump to finish the job of sealing the border and deporting criminals.
Robi Vollkommer is lobbying the Trump administration hard to have her brother’s killer, Mexican national Vicente Torres- Vasquez, detained and processed for deportation the instant he is released from the custody of the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC).
"I and other family members have reached out multiple times to President Trump, Pam Bondi, Tom Homan, and Kristi Noem,” Vollkommer said. "We gave them his release dates so they can be waiting to pick him up.”
In Wauconda in July 2011, a heavily inebriated Torres-Vasquez plowed his SUV into retired Marine Gregory Homola, 55, who was riding his motorcycle, killing Homola. Torres-Vasquez also struck a car injuring two occupants inside. His blood alcohol was 0.288. This was his fourth DUI.
Vollkommer did receive a reply letter in August from President Trump sympathizing with her loss, but has received no assurances from the administration that they have Torres-Vasquez in their sights for deportation upon his release.
"I’m worried he’s going to go out and do the same thing all over again,” Vollkommer said. "In the meantime, he has a job, a roof over his head and gets three meals a day all thanks to the taxpayers, and my brother is dead.”
Torres-Vasquez, now 62, was sentenced to 18 years, served 12 before being sent to the Crossroads Adult Transition Center in Chicago, a work release program, in May 2024. His projected mandatory supervised release date is Nov. 3, 2026, and his projected discharge date is Nov. 3, 2028.
For an earlier story, an IDOC spokesman commented that the state’s sanctuary law prohibits them from turning over released illegals to federal agents for deportation. Torres-Vasquez is in a sense doubly protected since Chicago has its own sanctuary law—Chicago police officers, for instance, are not cooperating with federal agents rounding up illegals with criminal records under Operation Midway Blitz.
The press office for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) did not return a call asking if their officers have Torres-Vasquez on their radar.
Vasquez remained in the country and was permitted to drive even though his multiple DUIs and other driving infractions should have activated his removal.
Lake County Circuit Court records show the 2011 arrest, another DUI arrest in November 2008, with driving on a revoked license, and no insurance, and two in 2007, one an aggravated DUI while driving on a suspended license.
At his sentencing in 2012, Lake County prosecutors said that Torres-Vasquez was a habitual felon who on the day he killed Homola sat in his car in a parking lot where "he drank more than 15 beers and a bottle of tequila before heading home,” the Daily Herald reported at the time.
"The term that he was literally 'blind drunk' never applied more than it does in this case," Lake County Assistant States Attorney Pat Fix said during his sentencing hearing. "And his first thought at the scene was not of helping anyone . . . the first words out of his mouth when a police officer arrived was, 'My life is over.'"
Don Rosenberg, president of Advocates for Victims of Illegal Alien Crime (AVIAC), said that the first DUI was more than enough cause to prompt federal authorities to deport Torres-Vasquez—being in the country illegally is reason enough alone.
He added that nothing prevents ICE from detaining Vasquez on his way to or from work, a move more likely ensure his capture and deportation. If they wait for Torres-Vasquez's release date, they might miss him.
"I've seen instances in sanctuary jurisdictions where they will release an illegal at three in the morning just to throw agents off," he said. "Or even released them a day or two earlier."
Rosenberg is living through a similar heartbreaking tragedy.
In 2010, he lost his 25-year-old son, Drew, in San Francisco to Honduran native Roberto Galo, driving without insurance or a license.
Rosenberg investigated and found that five months before his son's death, Galo had been stopped by police and cited for going the wrong way on a one-way street and driving without a license or insurance.
Galo was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, sentenced to six months in jail, and was released after 43 days.
Through AVIAC, Rosenberg is now a full-time activist for rounding up illegal immigrants, especially those with criminal records. Trouble is, he says, many sanctuary jurisdictions are not reporting felonies by illegals or reducing felony charges to misdemeanors so they face no prison time. In doing so, they lose out on millions from the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP).
"Imagine losing out on all that funding so you can protect criminals," Rosenberg said.
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