Prosecutors in at least 17 Illinois counties have been found to have shared sensitive personal data of criminal defendants with federal immigration agents without obtaining criminal warrants, public disclosure, or legislative oversight. This collaboration, which occurred during the first 15 months of President Donald Trump's second term, involved state's attorneys' offices acting as informants for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
The practice was uncovered through an investigation that reviewed over 5,000 pages of internal emails and case files obtained via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from all 102 Illinois state's attorney's offices. These documents revealed that prosecutors shared details such as defendants' dates of birth, home addresses, upcoming court dates, and even police reports and photographs. In some instances, prosecutors proactively offered information, while in others, they responded to direct inquiries from federal agents.
One documented case involved Rolando Perez Samayoa, who was arrested for a DUI in Marion County in October 2024. In January 2025, Assistant State’s Attorney John Christeson emailed HSI agent Sergio Fulgencio, providing Samayoa's date of birth, address in Centralia, Illinois, and an upcoming court date. Fulgencio subsequently requested and received Samayoa's police report and related tickets. Three weeks later, federal agents apprehended Samayoa outside his home, also taking his 17-year-old son.
The collaboration raises questions about the effectiveness of Illinois' 2017 TRUST Act, a "sanctuary" law intended to prevent local law enforcement from assisting federal deportation efforts. While the act bars police and other agencies from aiding federal agents without a federal criminal warrant, it does not explicitly define whether prosecutors and their staff are subject to the same restrictions.
The investigation found that the sharing of information often occurred without the knowledge of defendants or their attorneys. The consequences of this collaboration were significant, with individuals flagged to ICE being detained and deported, leading to family separations.
In another instance, just 20 minutes after flagging Samayoa, Christeson contacted Fulgencio again about another individual with a local warrant. Fulgencio confirmed that agents were already tracking this person on a civil removal order. Christeson indicated that the county warrant would not take priority over removal, and within 34 minutes, Fulgencio reported that the individual was in ICE custody awaiting removal.
The records indicate that DuPage County, where one in five residents are foreign-born, had the most frequent contact with federal immigration agents among Illinois prosecutor's offices. Staff there both responded to ICE requests and proactively offered cases for federal agents to pursue. For example, in April 2025, a Customs and Border Protection officer at O'Hare International Airport requested records related to a voter fraud investigation from an assistant prosecutor, using an administrative subpoena rather than a judge-issued warrant.
Legal experts suggest that local officials might be tempted to use deportation as an easier path than criminal prosecution to "clear their docket," potentially undermining defendants' rights in criminal proceedings. Unlike criminal cases, which require proof beyond a reasonable doubt and appointed attorneys for indigent defendants, immigration removal proceedings are civil, have a lower legal standard of "clear and convincing evidence," and do not guarantee the right to an appointed lawyer. Once a defendant is turned over to ICE, the protections afforded by the criminal justice system are often lost.
While some prosecutor's offices in Illinois had limited contact with ICE, others, despite facing similar federal pressure, reported no contact or actively avoided collaboration. This suggests that each instance of collaboration was a deliberate choice. The Department of Homeland Security has not commented on its agents' work with local officials in Illinois. Advocacy groups, who championed the TRUST Act, contend that the revealed collaborations demonstrate a breach of trust between immigrant communities and the criminal justice system.
