WIRED & Injustice Watch Expose Illinois County Prosecutors Who Became ICE Informants
Wired, in connection with Injustice Watch, released a noteworthy story today: The County Prosecutors Who Became ICE Informants. Check out this subtitle: "Illinois prosecutors shared defendants’ personal data with federal immigration agents without criminal warrants, public disclosure, or legislative oversight."
State’s attorneys offices in 1 out of every 6 Illinois counties acted as valuable assets of federal immigration enforcement, sharing sensitive personal data about the people they were prosecuting without criminal warrants, public disclosure, or legislative oversight and with no accounting of how often it happened or who was affected.
Sometimes, prosecutors volunteered information on their own. Other times, they simply answered when Department of Homeland Security agents came calling. The correspondence crossed party lines and included everyone from paralegals to elected state’s attorneys. The collaboration typically happened without the knowledge of defendants or their attorneys....
prosecutors shared much more than just names. Their emails contain photographs. Home addresses. The date and time a defendant was due in court or set to leave jail—the exact window for ICE to make an arrest.
As Wired and Injustice Watch point out, this is particularly interesting given IL's TRUST Act which bars police cooperation with immigrant enforcement. The statute does not have language covering prosecutors or their offices.
BONUS: The article features quotes from our own immprof Matthew Boaz (Kentucky)!
