Rolando Perez Samayoa came to Illinois believing the state would offer his family more protection from immigration enforcement. He had considered settling elsewhere after coming to the United States, but told reporter Aura Bogado that Illinois’ reputation as a sanctuary state influenced where he chose to live. Later, while facing a local DUI case that he said he deeply regretted, information from inside that criminal case traveled somewhere he had not expected: to federal immigration authorities.
According to records reviewed by Injustice Watch, an assistant county prosecutor contacted a Homeland Security agent and supplied information about Samayoa. Weeks later, ICE agents surrounded him outside his home as he was preparing to go out. His 17-year-old son saw what was happening and approached. Bogado reported that ICE agents perceived the teenager as a threat and aimed eight guns at him. DHS did not deny that agents pointed weapons at the child and instead issued a statement defending its use-of-force practices.
Americans Against ICE describes what followed as a kidnapping: federal agents took Samayoa and his teenage son into custody after information from his local criminal case had been supplied to federal immigration authorities. Samayoa said he later felt intense pressure to accept voluntary departure and told his son to do the same. Father and son were taken out of Illinois, flown through El Paso and ultimately crossed into Ciudad Juárez before making their way toward Chiapas. The rest of the family later reunited with them in Mexico.
Samayoa’s case sits inside a much larger record uncovered by Bogado’s investigations for Injustice Watch. Local police departments, sheriffs, prosecutors and other officials in more than one-third of Illinois counties were documented sharing information or taking actions that helped federal immigration authorities flag, locate, detain or deport at least 150 people. Bogado said she spent months speaking not only with officials and reviewing records, but with more than 20 people caught in those systems and their families. Some of the children she spoke with continued contacting her because they missed fathers who had been deported.
The findings expose a form of immigration cooperation that does not always require a local officer to physically hand someone over to ICE. Information itself can become the handoff. Bogado found evidence in roughly one in six Illinois counties that prosecutors or their staffs shared information with federal immigration authorities. Some responded to federal requests, while others initiated contact themselves. The information could include court appearances, release timing, police records and details that could help agents determine when or where to find someone.
That distinction matters in a state whose laws were designed to restrict local participation in federal civil immigration enforcement. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s guidance says the TRUST Act generally prohibits state and local law enforcement from participating in immigration enforcement and emphasizes that federal requests for local assistance are requests rather than obligations. The law reflects a basic separation: federal authorities enforce federal civil immigration law, while state and local officers operate under Illinois authority. For families like Samayoa’s, however, the practical protection offered by that separation depends in part on what local institutions do with information capable of leading federal agents to someone’s home.
Yet the investigations show that restricting direct participation does not necessarily stop information from moving through interconnected law-enforcement systems. Daniel Torres Perez’s case illustrates how quickly that can happen. Body-camera footage obtained by Bogado showed an April 2025 traffic stop in which an Illinois officer ran Torres Perez’s name and soon became involved in communications concerning federal immigration authorities. The recorded exchange referenced an ICE warrant while also establishing that Torres Perez had an active state DUI bench warrant.
Bogado described the underlying data route as information passing from local dispatch to Illinois State Police, then to the FBI and DHS, where federal immigration information could be detected and routed back toward the officer in real time. Torres Perez was later deported and never returned to his Illinois family, she said. The active state DUI bench warrant supplied an independent criminal basis for custody. The body-camera record still shows immigration information entering the stop through interconnected law-enforcement systems.
Whether the TRUST Act applies to state’s attorneys and their staffs remains disputed. Injustice Watch found disagreement among Illinois prosecutors over whether their offices fall under all of the law’s restrictions. Some offices have treated themselves as covered and restricted cooperation with ICE; others have taken a different legal view. Attorney General Raoul has not supplied a categorical answer resolving every circumstance.
That uncertainty does not erase the underlying conduct documented in the records. Prosecutor offices possessed information generated through local criminal cases and, in some instances, supplied it to federal immigration officials who could use it to locate defendants. Other Illinois offices operating under the same statewide laws made different choices, including limiting federal access or declining comparable cooperation. For people like Samayoa, those local decisions were not administrative details: information from his criminal case reached federal immigration authorities before agents came to his home. The contrast between offices matters because it shows that local choices shaped what federal authorities received and when they received it.
The statewide record also raises questions about oversight above the county level. In her Democracy Now interview, Bogado said Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office and Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly did not respond to her requests for comment. She said more than 60 offices or agencies failed to respond to repeated requests during the investigation. That leaves significant public questions unanswered about how Illinois monitors practices that can undermine the protections its leaders publicly describe.
For Rolando Perez Samayoa, the consequences were not theoretical questions about jurisdiction, databases or statutory definitions. Information from the local system handling his criminal case reached federal immigration authorities; weeks later agents came to his home, his teenage son faced eight guns, and both were ultimately removed from the United States. Across Illinois, Bogado’s reporting documents other families living with versions of that same consequence. The accountability question is therefore larger than whether Illinois has a law restricting cooperation with ICE. It is whether those protections can meaningfully shield immigrant families when information held by local institutions can still become a route for federal immigration enforcement.
Rolando Perez Samayoa came to Illinois believing its immigrant protections would help keep his family safe. Information from the local criminal case against him was later shared with federal immigration authorities. Weeks afterward, ICE agents surrounded him outside his home, and Bogado reported that they aimed eight guns at his 17-year-old son before father and son were taken into custody.
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Sources
Injustice Watch — Illinois promised to protect immigrants. Local officials helped deport them anyway. Read source
Democracy Now! — Illinois Is a Sanctuary State, But Cops & Prosecutors Still Secretly Work with ICE Watch / read source
WIRED / Injustice Watch — The County Prosecutors Who Became ICE Informants Read source
Illinois Attorney General — TRUST Act and Immigration-Enforcement Guidance Read guidance
