Loophole in Illinois Sanctuary Laws Lets ICE Hold Immigrants in County Jails |
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“We were in waiting mode,” a Honduran immigrant based in St. Louis told me as she described her time being held in a county jail in Missouri. In June 2025, the woman — who asked to be identified by pseudonym “Mary” to avoid targeting — was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at a gas station in St. Louis. “Dinner was the same every day, and waiting was the worst part because nobody tells you that you have to wait for such a long time,” she said.
Mary and her husband Jose (also identified here by a pseudonym) are both from Honduras. Their family is mixed-status: They have two children, one born in Honduras, the other born in the United States. During the first months of Donald Trump’s second administration, immigration sweeps in their working-class neighborhood of St. Louis created a flurry of panic and upended their lives. Just two weeks before Mary was arrested, Jose was picked up by ICE.
For a short time, they were both held in the same county jail in Phelps County, an hour and a half away from St. Louis, in central Missouri.
“I was taken to the same jail where he was in, but they didn’t allow me to see him,” Mary recalls. “It was very sad not knowing anything about him because he only had me.”
Three days later, Jose was transferred out of the jail. For six weeks, Mary did not hear from her husband. Nobody in their family could find him. He had disappeared into Trump’s deportation machine. There was more waiting.
Police in Many “Sanctuary Cities” Have Repeatedly Collaborated With ICE
Mary later located her husband with the help of Abide in Love, an organization doing jail support for immigrants in the Phelps County jail. Jose was being detained in Monroe County jail in Illinois, just across the border from St. Louis. This was a surprise, as Illinois is supposed to be a sanctuary state where county jails are banned from holding immigrants. As it turns out, there is a loophole that allows jails to hold immigrants with criminal violations in federal custody.
According to an indictment, Jose was being held on criminal charges of felony reentry, what is officially known as U.S. Code 1326, the “crime” of being caught twice crossing the border. The penalty is typically a two-year prison sentence, then deportation. The original law goes back to the anti-immigrant “nativist” movement of the 1920s. After 9/11, the newly formed Department of Homeland Security stepped up prosecutions of felony reentry. Immigration, once treated as civil law, became criminalized.
More recently, in September 2025, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the “Stop Illegal Entry Act” to increase the penalties for felony reentry to a mandatory minimum of five years of imprisonment. It has not come before the Senate, but Donald Trump has indicated he is willing to sign the bill.
The criminalization of immigration is often overlooked by immigration activists. In the attempt to portray undocumented people as non-criminals, even those advocating for immigrant rights are failing to address a large segment of immigrants being targeted. As a result, more face the threat of being disappeared by Trump’s deportation machine.
Illinois has been a national leader in passing laws to make the state a sanctuary for immigrants. Protections were enshrined in law by the TRUST Act, signed in 2017, outlawing cooperation between police and immigration enforcement, and the Illinois Way Forward Act, passed in 2021, banning the detention of immigrants in county jails.
An investigation by journalist Blair Paddock of WTTW in Chicago found that at least 17 counties in Illinois still have contracts to detain immigrants for ICE. Counties will often have a contract with the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) to detain individuals on federal charges, most often not immigration-related. Increasingly, these contracts are being used to hold people facing federal criminal charges related to their immigration status.
The total number of immigrants in detention throughout the United States is being significantly undercounted because immigrants are being imprisoned in county jails.
The total number of immigrants in detention throughout the United States is being significantly undercounted because immigrants are being imprisoned in county jails.
The total number of immigrants in detention throughout the United States is being significantly undercounted because immigrants are being imprisoned in county jails. A new report, “Hiding in Plain Sight: How Local Jails Obscure and Facilitate Mass Deportation Under Trump,” written by Jacob Kang-Brown, senior researcher at the Prison Policy Initiative, argues that data often cited in the media is missing a large portion of immigrants currently behind bars. In June 2025, ICE detention data reported 57,200 people were incarcerated, but if those in county jails are included, the number is closer to 83,400 people — 45 percent more than what is widely claimed.
ICE can “piggyback” on the contracts that county sheriffs have with USMS, as Kang-Brown told Truthout. Even though states like Illinois prohibit ICE contracts, there is still no prohibition against contracting with U.S. marshals. There is a federal pretrial detention facility in Illinois, Kang-Brown points out, the Metro Correctional Center in downtown Chicago. Instead, local jails are providing detention space “in a flexible way.” This network of county jails, says Kang-Brown, “is really being used in the current moment for this mass deportation Trump agenda.”
Those in pretrial detention could face a range of charges, from drug trafficking to gun violations, or as in the case of Jose, immigrants may be charged with felony reentry.
This helps explain how the numbers of immigrants in detention are being undercounted. As Kang-Brown elaborates, even many who advocate for immigrant rights “haven’t stood up as much for those immigrants caught up in the criminal legal system.” Likewise, the mainstream media may “see people caught up in the system negatively and are wary of portraying immigrants in a negative light.”
A Freedom of Information Act request revealed that Monroe County currently has a USMS contract that was renewed on May 1, 2025. The agreement is to hold a maximum of 30 men. The county is reimbursed at a per diem rate of $90. According to data provided to Truthout by Kang-Brown, from January to July 2025, Monroe County was reimbursed $343,317 to hold federal detainees. For sheriffs in small counties like Monroe County, with a population of about 35,000, these lucrative contracts can help to fill budget gaps and make facility upgrades.
The Monroe County contract does not have the box checked to be an “ICE rider,” but is apparently still holding immigrants like Jose on criminal charges for USMS.
“If they have federal criminal charges and a warrant signed by a judge, we can hold them,” said Monroe County Sheriff Neal Rohlfing, who spoke to Truthout over the phone.
According to Fred Tsao, policy director at Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights in Chicago, while Illinois bars county jails from holding individuals for civil immigration violations, the law “does not and cannot reach detention for people charged with criminal offenses, who are held pursuant to federal criminal warrants.”
In June 2025, ICE detention data reported 57,200 people were incarcerated, but if those in county jails are included, the number is closer to 83,400 people.
In June 2025, ICE detention data reported 57,200 people were incarcerated, but if those in county jails are included, the number is closer to 83,400 people.
This oversight in the law could be exploited as the Trump administration further expands immigrant detention. As Kang-Brown found in his research, there are 58 counties in Illinois with USMS contracts.
Illinois State Rep. Norma Hernandez told Truthout that she is in favor of strengthening the law, but there is currently a Department of Justice lawsuit challenging the state’s sanctuary status in federal court.
“I don’t think people should be criminalized for entering into another country,” said Hernandez. “We are criminalizing the opportunity to be able to do what was pretty normal back when we have the creation of this country. This country was built on immigrants. So how are we going to criminalize something that the foundation of this country was built on?”
In early December, after spending nearly six months at the Monroe County jail, Jose was deported back to Honduras. He was reunited with his father, but found out when he arrived that his mother had passed away while he was in jail. It was an especially difficult year for Jose and his family.
While Mary spent about a month in jail, the children stayed with family members. During this time there was “so much harm” to the children, said Mary, speaking through a translator. Her son used to play soccer outside, but now “he only wants to stay home and his gaze is sad.” Her daughter “barely speaks, she misses her father.” Mary has been depressed since returning home but, she said, “I have to try to be strong for my children because they only have me.”
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Brian Dolinar is an independent journalist based in Urbana, Illinois. His articles have appeared at The Appeal, In These Times, The Nation, and Truthout. You can follow his stories by subscribing to his Substack newsletter called “Sentences.”