Chicago police say they don’t ‘assist in immigration enforcement’ but have turned over key records to feds

Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, federal immigration authorities leading his mass deportation push have repeatedly asked the Chicago Police Department for the arrest records of immigrants.

In almost every case, records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show, the police department has handed over documents that include the names, addresses and country of origin of those targeted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.

Similar public records requests were fulfilled during former President Joe Biden’s term, which ended Jan. 20, when Trump returned to the Oval Office after campaigning on a promise to overhaul an immigration system he said was far too lenient.

In recent days, Trump’s immigration crackdown has prompted protests in Chicago and in other cities across the country, including Los Angeles, where the president has deployed the National Guard and Marines, saying they are needed to protect federal property and tamp down demonstrations that at times have grown volatile.

In Chicago, a crowd gathered outside of an ICE check-in office a week ago and tried to stop federal agents who were detaining immigrants, drawing police to a chaotic scene in which members of the Chicago City Council faced off with the agents.

Council members and immigration advocates have called for investigations into whether the police department violated a state law and city ordinance restricting law enforcement officers’ cooperation with federal immigration officials.

But, as the records obtained by the Sun-Times show, there are limits even in Chicago, a self-declared sanctuary city, on what information can be withheld. The police department’s disclosures to DHS, ICE and CBP show that, in releasing records such as arrest reports, it can provide information that’s useful to immigration enforcement agencies.

Between November 2022 and late this past March, those three federal agencies obtained the arrest reports for at least a dozen men under Illinois’ Freedom of Information Act. Some of them haven’t been convicted of a crime in Cook County. Others have lengthy arrest records that include serious charges.

At least two of the men have recently been held in ICE custody, including Eduardo Drubi, whose attorney Richard L. Fenbert says Drubi has now been deported to his native Chile.

Fenbert says he started representing Drubi in a pending gun case on April 3 — after Drubi had already been arrested by ICE. The Chicago police sent ICE the arrest records for that case on March 28. Court records show he has no criminal convictions in Cook County.

In February 2024, when Biden was in office, an ICE attorney requested records of a “noncitizen” ahead of a court hearing later that day. The lawyer asked for records of arrests from the mid-1990s. The police department responded by saying it couldn’t find any relevant documents.

Under Illinois’ records law, government agencies have five business days to respond to a request for public records, though they can get a five-day extension. Deadlines are often blown, though. Unresponsive agencies can face lawsuits and be ordered to turn over records by the Illinois attorney general’s office.

The Chicago Police Department responded on the same day that it got them to at least three requests for records from ICE and CBP, and DHS got a response to another request in three days.

The police didn’t provide the records that it had handed over to DHS, ICE and CBP in response to eight other requests.

Spokespeople for ICE and DHS didn’t respond to requests for comment. A CBP spokesperson wouldn’t comment.

Asked about the records of immigrants that it has given to federal agencies, a spokesperson for the police department points to a written statement issued after the clashes at the immigration check-in office, reiteration that officers don’t “assist in immigration enforcement.”

The mayor’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.

But Mayor Brandon Johnson admonished ICE on Wednesday for subpoenaing the city clerk’s office for personal information of applicants seeking a city-issued identification card that’s popular with noncitizens.

“It’s bad, and it’s wrong,” he said to reporters about the Trump administration’s efforts to get those records.

Mary Richardson-Lowry, who as Johnson’s corporation counsel is City Hall’s top lawyer, said then that the city didn’t respond to the request by ICE for the ID records because doing so would have exposed information on vulnerable people such as domestic violence victims. She described the request as an “administrative warrant” that wasn’t signed by a judge.

“Should they move towards a court setting, we will respond in kind,” Richardson-Lowry said, noting that the city previously has “produced documents that we do think we’re obligated to produce.”

‘They’re gonna act on it’

The City Council’s Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights is planning a hearing about the contentious events that surrounded immigration arrests June 4 at ICE’s Intensive Supervision Appearance Program office, 2245 S. Michigan Ave.

In a letter, members of the Latino Caucus say they want “to examine the extent of ICE’s misconduct and determine whether the Chicago Police Department played any role.”

Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th), who heads the committee and the Latino Caucus, says the hearing will also be used to discuss CPD’s responses to the public records requests, so alderpersons can “better understand what information is shared and what should [or] shouldn’t be shared.”

Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th), whose ward includes heavily Latino Pilsen and Little Village, says Council members and state lawmakers need to “close the loopholes” in sanctuary laws to better protect immigrants targeted for deportations.

The Sun-Times has reported that officers in the police department’s Near West District were told to alert DHS about “migrant arrests” involving people with tattoos or clothing associated with the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which has been a focus of Trump’s immigration crackdown. At the time, police Supt. Larry Snelling said an investigation had been opened into the directive from an October 2023 presentation.

Now, Sigcho-Lopez is calling for an investigation into any “break in protocols.” He says it’s concerning that police records have been given to federal agencies at the heart of Trump’s immigration raids because “they’re gonna act on it.”

Chicago became a sanctuary city in 1985 under Mayor Harold Washington. And, in 2012, the City Council approved Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s “Welcoming City” ordinance, which generally bars the police department from participating in civil immigration enforcement and investigating a person’s citizenship or immigration status.

The Illinois TRUST Act, signed in 2017 by then-Gov. Bruce Rauner, established similar protections on the state level.

In February, the Trump administration sued the city of Chicago, the state of Illinois and Cook County, saying their policies barring local authorities from cooperating with deportations are “exacerbating” a crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Brandon Lee, a spokesperson for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, says immigration advocates are fighting the challenge to the state law, which his organization played a key role in getting enacted.

The next step will be “returning to the General Assembly and asking them to strengthen the TRUST Act,” Lee says.

He says the coalition asked Attorney General Kwame Raoul to investigate the police department’s response at the ICE check-in office.

But Raoul says his staff does “not believe there is a need to open a formal investigation.”

He also backs the Chicago Police Department as being “better positioned than any National Guard or federal troops to navigate our city through [protests] peacefully.”