Illinois let go more than 500 people whom federal immigration officers had asked jails to hold, and some were later arrested for robbery, domestic violence and a killing, congressional investigators say. The reason they give is state law, which bars local jails and police from honoring those requests, according to a House Judiciary Committee staff report released Thursday, October 1.
Story Snapshot
- The report says the Cook County Sheriff’s Office released 408 people with active ICE detainers in 2025, and state prisons released nearly 100 more in 2024 and 2025.
- An ICE detainer is a request from federal immigration officers asking a jail to hold a person so they can take custody.
- Illinois law bars jails from honoring those requests unless there is a criminal warrant signed by a judge.
- News coverage of the report carried no response from Governor JB Pritzker, who has defended the state’s laws.
What the House report says happened in Illinois
The interim staff report comes from the committee’s Republican majority, led by Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio. It says the Cook County Sheriff’s Office “released 408 criminal aliens from its custody in 2025 instead of honoring active ICE detainers.” The report says that group included people with pending charges for domestic battery, domestic violence and a firearms offense. It also says the Illinois Department of Corrections released nearly 100 more from state prisons in 2024 and 2025 without handing them to federal officers.
The report says Chicago police received about 1,136 detainers, administrative warrants and release-notice requests from July 2024 through June 2026 and transferred no one. ICE is Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency that arrests and deports people who are in the country illegally. An administrative warrant is signed by an immigration officer, not a judge.
The later crimes the report names
The committee lists cases. In January 2025, the report says, Chicago police released a man arrested for assault and child luring even though ICE had filed a detainer. Two weeks later, he was accused of taking part in a robbery and killing inside a Chicago home. In February 2025, the report says, police released a man arrested for domestic violence. A year later he was arrested again for domestic violence and three counts of resisting a peace officer.
A third case in the report began with a domestic battery arrest in August 2025. The report says Chicago police did not honor the detainer, and the man was arrested in New Mexico in June 2026 for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. Every count and every case here comes from the committee’s report.
How Illinois leaders defend their approach
Laws that limit local help with immigration arrests are often called sanctuary laws. In Illinois, a 2017 law called the TRUST Act bars state and local police from holding a person on an ICE detainer alone. The exception is a criminal arrest warrant from a federal judge. A 2021 law went further and bars local governments from signing contracts with ICE, the report says. Cook County says state law bars it from honoring civil immigration detainers, and that it honors criminal warrants signed by judges.
Pritzker, a Democrat, defended the state’s approach before a House committee on June 12, 2025. He said then that “violent criminals have no place on our streets, and if they are undocumented, I want them out of Illinois and out of our country.” He also said violent crime in Illinois has “declined significantly in recent years.” News coverage of the new report through Friday, October 2, carried no response from his office.
What to watch next
The committee says its investigation continues. The report points to a bill the committee approved on March 5, 2026, the Shut Down Sanctuary Policies Act. That bill would bar state and local laws that limit cooperation with federal immigration officers. For Illinois residents, the report puts numbers and named cases on a long fight over who decides when a jailed person is handed to federal officers.
Sources:
redstate.com, washingtonexaminer.com