In one of his final campaign stops before Election Day on Nov. 5, former President Donald Trump called out the shooting of a Jewish man in Chicago as an example of the Biden-Harris administration’s border policies.
Speaking at a Monday rally in Raleigh, N.C., the Republican presidential nominee called the Oct. 26 shooting a “horrendous situation.”
“An illegal alien from North Africa, who Kamala let into our country with her horrendous, open border—just a dangerous, horrendous situation—traveled to a Jewish neighborhood in Chicago and tried to execute a Jewish man on the street, shooting him in the back as he walked to synagogue,” Trump said, referring to Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. “He then opened fire on police and paramedics, shooting an ambulance before police returned fire and ended his rampage fairly quickly.”
Chicago prosecutors have charged Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi, 22, with 16 felonies, including terrorism and hate-crime counts after police discovered evidence that he had deliberately set out to attack Jews. A Mauritanian national, Abdallahi entered the country illegally and was apprehended by the Border Patrol near San Diego in 2023 and was released inside the United States.
At a press conference on Oct. 31, local officials declined to describe Abdallahi’s current immigration status before the charges were presented in court.
Abdallahi allegedly shot the 39-year-old Jewish man while he was walking to synagogue on Shabbat. Local police who arrived at the scene wounded Abdallahi during a two-and-a-half-minute gun battle.
Chicago-area officials faced intense criticism from the local Jewish community after Mayor Brandon Johnson’s initial statement about the incident did not mention that the victim was Jewish.
Neither U.S. President Joe Biden nor Harris has issued a statement about the attack. Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish, alluded to the shooting in an Oct. 28 speech in Pittsburgh.
“We see the antisemitic attacks that are happening week by week in America,” including “the man who was shot in Chicago while walking to Shabbat services two days ago,” Emhoff said.
The second gentleman added that he and Harris were committed to “extinguishing this epidemic of hate.”
