In early October, a black Chevrolet Express van without license plates on the front or the back left a gated federal immigration facility in Broadview and drove through the western suburb.
The passengers wore Army green typical of U.S. Department of Homeland Security officers. The van had an “inventory” decal on the back, but with faces shielded, no badge numbers and no visible license plates at all, the pair were virtually untraceable — the latest sign, documented by the Chicago Sun-Times, of the ways in which federal immigration agents are shielding themselves from public scrutiny.
The Sun-Times has documented four such unmarked cars on public streets without proper license plates and no other indicators that they are government vehicles, ever since an influx of federal officers sent by the Trump administration began roaming Chicago in early September. One car had no license plates at all; three had only one plate.
Illinois law requires all registered vehicles to display front and back license plates, without exception, according to the secretary of state’s office. But the greater concern here, a civil rights lawyer says, is a “severe lack of accountability.”
“Whether it’s [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] or any other agency not identifying themselves, whether that is hiding their faces, hiding their license plates, it’s just a severe lack of accountability, because if you don’t know who they are, you can’t hold them accountable for abuses,” says Alexandra Block, director of the Criminal Legal Systems and Policing Project at the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois.
“It’s also a dangerous situation,” she says. “People don’t know that they are federal agents, and it’s an invitation to copycats who are bad actors kidnapping people because there’s no way to distinguish kidnappers from federal agents when they’re acting this way.”
Men in at least three different states have been accused of posing as ICE agents to kidnap people, sexually assault women and rob homes, and have faced charges including impersonating police.
In a statement, DHS insisted they’re complying with federal rules.
“To be clear: Our vehicles meet federal regulations for law enforcement,” says Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary at DHS, which oversees ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Her statement did not include specifics of the regulations. She did not respond to follow up questions.
“DHS is not going to confirm our vehicles and put an even larger target on our officers’ backs,” she says. “When our heroic law enforcement officers conduct operations, they clearly identify themselves as law enforcement while wearing masks to protect themselves from being targeted by highly sophisticated gangs like Tren de Aragua and MS-13, criminal rings, murderers and rapists.”
Unmarked cars with out-of-state plates or none at all
Trump’s immigration “blitz,” launched a month ago, has swelled the number of federal officers making arrests in Chicago and the suburbs. Unlike local law enforcement, they don’t wear name badges or any kind of ID number akin to a Chicago Police Department star, making it nearly impossible to identify individuals.
They’ve also for the most part masked their appearances with hats and with balaclavas or tight-fitting sleeves that cover their noses and mouths.
The obscuring flies in the face of an executive order Mayor Brandon Johnson signed in August barring officers from concealing their identities with masks, and requiring them to wear identifying badges and active body-worn cameras when making stops and arrests. The order, though, ultimately only urges federal law enforcement to abide by city laws on policing.
The raids in Chicago and heavily Latino suburbs have been carried out in unmarked cars bearing license plates from Illinois and at least 14 other states, plus a small fleet of vans and pickup trucks tagged on the back with the white U.S. government plates showing which federal agency owns them, the Sun-Times has documented.
Last week, Sun-Times journalists identified and photographed federal vehicles entering and leaving the Broadview ICE facility without required license plates. The parking lot where immigrants are unloaded has a tall sliding security gate that keeps it inaccessible to the public.
- A black GMC Denali without a rear license plate left the gated parking lot and then drove through the western suburb. On its front was an Illinois plate marked with an “FP” on its left side, a “fleet plate” typically used for municipalities or companies that own large numbers of vehicles. Its tinted windows were too dark to see the driver or front passenger.
- A black Chrysler minivan returned to the facility with Illinois passenger vehicle tags on its back, but was missing its required front plate. Its tinted windows also obscured who was in the front seat.
- A silver Ford Expedition SUV that turned into the facility parking lot also was missing a front plate that should mirror the Illinois one on the rear.
At least eight more vehicles photographed in Broadview are registered in states that only require a rear license plate. Although this is compliant with Illinois law, it makes identification more challenging.
Rapid response teams of activists, lawyers and community members documenting ICE and CBP actions have used vehicle descriptions and license plate numbers to alert residents of the presence of federal officers.
Members of the Chicago Rapid Response Network, a group of 35 neighborhood teams, say they’ve also seen unmarked cars without license plates on the front or back since September.
Driving a car or truck without the required license plates and current registration stickers comes with a fine of up to $500, according to the Illinois Secretary of State. Citations are issued by law enforcement agencies.
The Trump administration has used driving records as one justification for the arrest and deportation of immigrants in and around Chicago.
The ACLU’s Block calls this “a serious double standard at work.”
“Ordinary people get pulled over by the hundreds in Chicago every day for not having a properly affixed license plate, or having an expired registration sticker, or all sorts of technical violations of the [Illinois] vehicle code that relate to license plates, and people get profiled by the police,” Block says. “And if ordinary people can’t get away with it, then the federal government should not be able to get away with it, either.”