Chicago: Sanctuary city? What does that mean for Chicago’s illegal population?
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It was just before midnight on Jan. 21, 2009, that Rigo Padilla caught the red and blue lights of a Chicago Police cruiser in his rearview mirror.
Padilla, just one month shy of his 21st birthday, was on his way home from a friend’s place, where he said he’d drunk three or four beers. His 1992 Honda Accord swerved as it headed westbound through the 4400 block of Marquette Road on the city’s southwest side, according to a police report of the incident.
Once he’d been pulled over, police found that Padilla’s blood-alcohol level was more than twice Illinois’ legal limit, according to the report.
But instead of being charged with misdemeanor drunken driving and being released on $100 bond, Padilla, an undocumented Mexican immigrant, spent four nights behind bars in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE. He now faces deportation to a country he hardly remembers.
That’s something Padilla thought was impossible, given the status of Chicago and Cook County as so-called “sanctuaries” for illegal immigrants.
“Whatever happens with my DUI, I accept that,” said Padilla, who came to America when he was seven, attended Chicago public schools and now studies at Harold Washington College. “But I’m saying, because of the circumstances [under which] I am here, don’t penalize me for that.”
Padilla’s case illustrates the confusion and frustration of many in Chicago’s immigrant communities when it comes to the question of legal sanctuary.
In 1985, Mayor Harold Washington issued an executive order declaring Chicago a “sanctuary city” for undocumented immigrants. The city council reinforced the order with an ordinance in 2006. The next year, the Cook County Board followed suit with a resolution of its own.
The local sanctuary measures create a sort of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy on illegal immigration: City and county workers are forbidden from enforcing immigration laws or aiding in investigations, and residents can’t be denied government benefits or services based on their legal status.
There are dozens of municipalities with sanctuary laws in the United States. Many were drafted or redrafted in the years following the Sept. 11 attacks, when the federal government began pressuring municipalities to help it root out illegal immigrants.
Lacking the time and resources, many local governments pushed back with sanctuary declarations.
“It is a separation of powers issue,” said Deborah White, chief of the Felony Trial Division in the Cook County Public Defender’s Office. “[But] it’s not as if I walked into a church, like in ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame,’ and no one can get me.”
Critics say the local laws are peppered with loopholes that still allow for undocumented immigrants to be transferred into federal custody.
Moreover, the local laws seem destined to be toothless, say some legal experts. That’s because federal law makes it a crime to impede the work of ICE. So while local officials can’t help federal immigration officials, they can’t hinder them, either.
“It’s a good political statement on the part of the city and Cook County,” said Jorge Mujica, a Chicago-based immigrant-rights activist. “But [the laws] are absolutely insufficient. They really don’t establish any sanctuary for anybody.”
“Poli-migra”
Many immigrants find themselves in Padilla’s situation: They start off in local custody facing felony DUI charges and, in just a couple of days, find themselves in federal custody, facing deportation.
During fiscal year 2008, ICE identified about 15,000 illegal immigrants who were being held in jails and prisons inside the six-state operating region that includes Chicago, said a representative for the agency.
There are several points in the criminal justice process where it would seem that local sanctuary laws would prevent immigrants from being turned over to ICE. In fact, the place where immigrants are most exposed to government officials – in the criminal justice system – is the place where sanctuary laws provide the least protection.
For example, when the Chicago Police Department takes someone into custody, the prisoner’s place of birth is listed on the arrest report, alongside standard biographical information.
Those reports are later viewed by federal agents to help determine whom they should investigate, said a representative from ICE’s Chicago office.
The Chicago Police Department says place of birth is just an additional identifier.
But Tara Tidwell Cullen, a representative for the Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center, disagrees.
“Basically, it’s a way for local authorities to try and enforce immigration laws,” said Cullen.
26th and Cal
Local sanctuary laws provide even less protection once undocumented immigrants arrive at the Cook County Criminal Courthouse, a seven story, neoclassical monolith at the corner of 26th Street and California Avenue in the city’s Little Village neighborhood.
“Twenty-sixth and Cal,” as it’s known colloquially, processes about 25,000 felony cases a year. It’s also where more than 1,500 employees spend their work week.
And with them, five days a week, is a cadre of ICE agents.
Although ICE agents do not have a designated office at the courthouse, they do share space with bond clerks and with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, said Gail Montenegro, a spokeswoman at ICE’s Chicago office.
“Any type of sanctuary policy represents a serious public safety issue,” Montenegro said in a statement, adding that ICE will continue its work “despite any enactment of sanctuary policies.”
At the courthouse, agents decide which inmates to investigate by trolling local law enforcement databases on federally-issued laptops, and perusing the previous day’s arrest records.
Those arrest records are made available to ICE agents by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, Montenegro said.
State’s Attorney spokeswoman Sally Daly said she isn’t sure whether her office provides ICE with those records. But she acknowledged that two or three ICE agents usually spend a couple hours a day perusing law enforcement databases in the State’s Attorney’s office.
“They’re a law enforcement agency,” Daly said. “We can’t boot them out.”
She added that the State’s Attorney’s office does not report prisoners’ immigration status to ICE.
But Cook County Commissioner Roberto Maldonado (D-Chicago) said the State’s Attorney’s tacit cooperation with ICE represents “a total disregard” of the county ordinance he sponsored two years ago.
“You may not deny [ICE] access to data,” Maldonado said. “But you don’t have to give them desk space. You don’t have to give them coffee and doughnuts, if that’s what happens.”
Due to the primacy of federal law, the county officials don’t have much choice but to let ICE agents into the courthouse.
“If the federal government wants to enforce immigration laws, they’re going to,” said Anita Maddali, a lawyer with the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), which does legal work in the Latino community. “While Cook County is not receiving funding from ICE, they are allowing ICE to have a presence in the jail.”
“The Bridge”
To determine who might be eligible for deportation, Montenegro said ICE agents also interview prisoners as they await their bond hearing.
If agents suspect that a prisoner may be in the United States illegally, they notify the sheriff not to release him. ICE then has 48 hours to pick up the prisoner, Montenegro said.
In 2008, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office turned over about 250 prisoners to ICE, said Sheriff’s Office spokesman Steve Patterson.
Interviews take place in a temporary detention area in the basement of the courthouse, known simply as “the bridge.”
The issue of who has jurisdiction over the bridge is unclear – and perhaps purposely so.
The Sheriff’s Office is merely in charge of providing security for the area, Patterson said. Sheriff’s officers are responsible for signing in visitors, and escorting prisoners to and from courtrooms.
But Patterson insists the bridge is under the jurisdiction of the Chief Judge of the Cook County Circuit Court– not the Sheriff.
“If the Chief Judge says, ‘Let ICE in there,’ we follow the judge’s order,” Patterson said, although he added later that he didn’t think the Sheriff’s Office had ever received such an order.
Patterson also pointed to the federal law that prohibits local authorities from impeding immigration investigations.
But White, of the Public Defender’s Office, offered her own clarification.
“The sheriffs are in charge of the basement, no matter what anyone tells you,” White said. She called the question of jurisdiction “a political tennis ball” because no county agency wants to appear as though it’s breaking with the sanctuary resolution by letting ICE interview prisoners.
No one from the Chief Judge’s Office would talk on the record about the matter.
Whatever the case, many say that ICE’s interviews on the bridge present their own legal issues.
Although ICE agents do wear badges, they usually dress in street clothes and “don’t go to any special effort to let people know that they’re ICE agents rather than police officers,” said Cullen, the spokeswoman for the National Immigrant Justice Center.
MALDEF attorney Maddali added that because immigration law is civil and not criminal, federal agents aren’t required to read prisoners their rights before interviewing them.
Throw in a language barrier, and White said the end result is that many illegal immigrants end up incriminating themselves to federal agents because they don’t know to whom they’re speaking.
“The clients cannot refuse to speak to ICE. That’s part of the problem,” White said. “But they do not have to incriminate themselves.”
Montenegro would not discuss the specifics of the ICE interview process, citing security reasons.
To allay some of these concerns, bilingual signs, which inform prisoners of their legal rights, have recently been posted in the bridge.
But Maddali said signs won’t solve the problem.
“I think that the person actually questioning you should let you know the consequences of speaking,” she said. “So the signs are a good start, but there needs to be a little bit more.”
The national picture
It’s difficult to gauge where Chicago’s and Cook County’s sanctuary policies rank against other cities.
There are nearly 80 municipalities in the United States that have sanctuary policies, according to the National Immigration Law Center.
Those policies offer varying degrees of protection and come in many different forms, from police guidelines to legislative ordinances, said Laureen Laglagaron, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, an immigration think tank in Washington, D.C.
“These are all very distinct policies that have been wrapped up in ‘sanctuary,’” Laglagaron said. “It is very difficult to get a handle on what someone would call a ‘sanctuary city.’”
In 1996, Congress outlawed sanctuary policies that banned local officials from cooperating with federal immigration agents.
Since then, many localities like Chicago and Cook County have circumvented this issue by prohibiting local officials from even inquiring into a person’s immigration status, the logic being that they can’t share what they don’t know.
And while local officials can’t impede a federal immigration investigation, the local laws also prohibit local workers from assisting federal agents.
But for the policies to work, Laglagaron said the community needs to be on board.
“How a policy is instituted and framed in the public’s imagination – that has an effect on whether these policies are actually put into place,” she said.
Whether Cook County’s resolution is effective largely depends on the culture of a specific office or department, Maldonado said.
“What is the understanding of the top person of a given agency does not always trickle down to low level employees,” he said.
An ‘imperfect’ sanctuary
When Chicago and Cook County first passed their sanctuary laws, the immigrant-rights community rejoiced, said Mujica.
But the honeymoon is over.
“It’s become clear to everyone that these are ordinances without teeth,” he said. “It is no sanctuary at all.”
Commissioner Maldonado said he’s been working with the Sheriff’s Office and the Public Defender’s Office to ensure that the resolution is followed.
But he said the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office has not responded to requests to meet with him.
Still, he conceded that the resolution is largely a symbolic gesture – a way to let undocumented immigrants know that they’re welcome in his county.
“I’m not suggesting that these types of ordinances or resolutions are the safeguard or the panacea,” Maldonado said. “It’s grossly imperfect, but it’s a tool to try to change some behavior.”
