By Chris Boyette, Taylor Romine, CNN

(CNN) — Katie Abraham and Chloe Polzin were hunting for a late-night snack with three other friends on a frigid night in Urbana, Illinois.

The end of winter break was nearing for the two university students, who had traveled to Urbana to visit other water polo players at the University of Illinois, Abraham’s father told CNN.

It was nearly 2 a.m. on January 19 when 20-year-old Abraham and 21-year-old Polzin, along with their friends, stopped at a red light. Suddenly, an SUV came up quickly behind them, smashing into the car and injuring all five people inside, according to Urbana Police.

The two girls were killed in a drunken-driving hit-and-run collision, the Department of Homeland Security said, by a man in the United States illegally who fled the scene of the crime.

Abraham was pronounced dead at the hospital soon after the accident, police said. Polzin died the next day, according to her obituary.

Almost eight months after Abraham’s death, the Department of Homeland Security announced it was launching its latest immigration enforcement action in Illinois, “Operation Midway Blitz,” in her honor, drawing the 20-year-old’s name into national politics as an example of a broken immigration system amid a larger crackdown in cities across the US.

Her father, Joe Abraham, told CNN the federal government failed “miserably” in protecting his daughter and that state politicians ignored her death, and by extension, “let it happen.”

What we know about the wreck

Temperatures had dropped as low as 2 degrees the night Abraham died, and never broke above freezing that day.

Abraham and Polzin were childhood friends from their time at the East Side Water Polo Club in the Chicago suburbs.

The two girls, along with three other friends, were sitting at a red light just 1.5 miles north of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign when a red Mitsubishi Outlander crashed into the back of their car, police said.

All five were taken to the hospital, according to police. While two were released with minor injuries and another made a recovery, Abraham was declared dead at the hospital. Polzin was declared brain dead the next day, according to her obituary.

The Polzin family did not respond to CNN’s attempts to speak with them for this story.

Police said the driver fled the scene on foot. Three days later, the US Marshals Service found him in Texas, riding a bus headed to Mexico.

The death of the youngest daughter

Joe Abraham’s youngest daughter loved water.

“I think she liked the water better than land,” her father said.

She played water polo for a travel team throughout high school and for a club team in college. She swam and did diving from a young age, he said.

Abraham, who was from Glenview, Illinois, was going into her third year at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, according to her father. She wasn’t certain yet, but he thinks she was leaning toward majoring in marketing. They intended to talk about it the next time she was home.

“She kind of had a plan of where she was going to go, and obviously that didn’t happen,” he said.

Joe Abraham said his daughter “loved life, and she knew how to enjoy it, and get the best out of it.”

He called her “such a special person,” who was genuine and authentic. She made everyone feel seen and had a terrific wit and a great sense of humor, he added.

She loved all kinds of music, and Joe Abraham recalled sitting together and listening to music from his generation.

She had an “eclectic group of friends,” and two siblings with whom she was close.

“She was just such a good sister to her older sister and older brother,” her father said. “It’s a sad, sad situation.”

What we know about the SUV driver

US Marshals tracked down the SUV driver three days after he fled the scene of the crime on an “El Expreso” bus – “the express” – heading to Matamoros, Mexico.

The man told police he was a 27-year-old Mexican named Juan Jahaziel Saenz-Suarez the morning he was captured. But a day later, he divulged to police that his identity was a lie – he was 29, from Guatemala. His name was actually Julio Cucul-Bol.

He was not legally in the United States and had used forged documents to hide his identity, police said.

Police filed new charges against Cucul-Bol for leaving the scene of a personal injury crash resulting in death, aggravated driving under the influence resulting in death and reckless homicide.

Federal prosecutors charged Cucul-Bol in May with possessing a false permanent resident card, possessing a false Social Security card, false use of a passport, and making a false statement on a bank application, according to the Department of Justice.

In February, Immigration and Customs Enforcement lodged an arrest detainer requesting local authorities notify ICE before Cucol-Bol is released, the agency told CNN. According to ICE records, he is being held in custody in Champaign, Illinois.

CNN has reached out to the Department of Justice for an update on Cucul-Bol’s status. Court documents online do not list the name of a defense attorney for Cucul-Bol.

A death drawn into a political arena

Joe Abraham said the federal government first reached out to him in June, when House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer invited him to attend a committee meeting where Democratic governors – including J.B. Pritzker of Illinois – testified about their states’ so-called “sanctuary state” policies.

He said he had hoped to speak with Pritzker after the Illinois governor heard his daughter’s story, but told CNN, “No one could muster up even a look in my direction.”

A few weeks later, he said, he and his wife were contacted by the Trump administration and invited to the White House for an event for Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”

“Joe, we will end this invasion once and for all, and we’re always going to remember the memory of Katie, the beautiful, beautiful 20-year-old daughter of yours,” Trump told him before shaking his hand and holding up a photo of the father and daughter.

“I don’t want to get political. I hate this crap. I’m just in this position now,” Joe Abraham told CNN.

He criticized the current Illinois government and the previous presidential administration for mishandling immigration and called for a vetting process before people are allowed in the country.

“Don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying everyone’s a criminal. What I’m saying is this guy in particular could have easily been filtered out of the system. He was using an alias … and really was not being any type of a productive person here in Illinois,” Joe Abraham told CNN. “And for him to take her life is a very sad state.”

Abraham’s parents were featured in a video posted by the Department of Homeland Security earlier this week, where the agency announced it was launching an immigration operation in Illinois.

A question appears in overlaid text on the video: “When you hear people say illegal aliens aren’t given due process, what’s your reaction?”

“Katie received no due process,” Joe Abraham says in the video.

“When you talk about due process, I wish she was in another country or in some detention center I can go see her, but she’s not, and I’ll never see her again.”

The Department of Homeland Security called Joe Abraham one day before the agency announced Operation Midway Blitz would be done in honor of their daughter.

“Some might say they’re leveraging me, but maybe we’re leveraging them a little bit so other kids don’t get killed, and other parents don’t have to go see what we’re going through,” he said. “So, maybe it’s a two-way street there. I was just happy someone acknowledged Katie.”

What is Operation Midway Blitz?

DHS on Monday announced “Operation Midway Blitz,” aimed at targeting “criminal illegal aliens who flocked to Chicago and Illinois because they knew Governor Pritzker and his sanctuary policies would protect them and allow them to roam free on American streets.”

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained at least five people over the weekend, including a flower vendor and a person waiting for the bus, Chicago Alderperson Jeylú Gutiérrez said Monday.

Ongoing arrests in Chicago are expected to expand as a federal presence builds up in a weeks-long, phased approach, according to officials familiar with the plans who stressed it’s still in flux.

The operations in Boston and Chicago are modeled after the June immigration sweeps in Los Angeles. The Supreme Court ruled Monday that immigration enforcement officials can continue what critics describe as “roving patrols” in Southern California that lower courts said likely violated the Fourth Amendment.

Pritzker denounced the DHS operations in the state Monday, saying in a post on X that the operation “isn’t about fighting crime.”

“That requires support and coordination — yet we’ve experienced nothing like that over the past several weeks,” he said, adding that the administration has chosen to focus “on scaring Illinoisians.”

CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez and Danya Gainor contributed to this report.

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