The Forum acknowledges State Senator John J. Cullerton, State Representative Emanuel Chris Welch, the dozens of cosponsors and community-based organizations across the Illinois that made up the broad and diverse coalition, led in large part by immigrant community members, that supported and ultimately passed the Act.

The Act stipulates that state and local police cannot stop, search, arrest, or detain someone just because of their citizenship or immigration status. Further, police cannot detain someone longer than they would otherwise be held just because ICE requests custody, also known as an “immigration detainer” (jurisdictions have no legal obligation to comply with detainers), unless presented with a warrant signed by a judge.

Only three cities in Illinois are known to have policies limiting cooperation between police and ICE, beyond existing state law : Chicago, Evanston, and Oak Park (Village). Overall, these policies state that city officials, including police, will not expend local resources on federal immigration matters.

Opponents of welcoming policies assert that they reduce public safety and increase crime. However, data has shown repeatedly that there is no correlation between the existence of welcoming policies and increased crime. A 2019 study published in the Undergraduate Economic Review explored the relationship between violent crime rates and property crime rates in cities that limit cooperation with ICE and those that do not and found that there was no statistically significant relationship between the two. And one other study, from the Center for American Progress, showed a decrease in crime in jurisdictions with welcoming policies. In that 2017 study researchers found that on average, 35.5 fewer crimes were committed per 10,000 people in sanctuary counties compared to non-sanctuary counties.

What about violent crime? A 2020 PNAS study, using FBI crime data, revealed that sanctuary policies between 2010 and 2015 reduced deportations of people with no criminal convictions by half—without affecting deportations of people with violent convictions. This suggests that welcoming policies do not prevent police from arresting individuals who committed violent crimes, despite arguments to the contrary. Ultimately, welcoming policies help police to do their jobs more effectively while ensuring community safety.

Due process & constitutional rights: Due process is a fundamental right protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, that ensure all individuals —regardless of immigration status— are treated fairly under the law. Refusing to comply with ICE detainers, which is one of the primary ways jurisdictions can cooperate with ICE, upholds due process.

Moreover, jurisdictions may refuse to comply with detainers because several courts have found aspects of them to be unconstitutional. Under the Fourth Amendment, ICE must have “probable cause” to compel police to hold someone beyond their release date, as this is considered a new arrest. ICE must determine that the detained person is “deportable” or “subject to removal.”

Unfortunately, in practice, this does not always happen. In 2019, a federal court in California exposed a major flaw in ICE’s system: between May 2015 and February 2016, ICE mistakenly asked police to arrest nearly 800 individuals—all of whom were either U.S. citizens or otherwise not deportable. In other words, ICE relies on a system that is prone to errors and has little-to-no accountability, which leaves certain groups—victims of crime or immigrants with limited English proficiency, for example—vulnerable to detention and potential deportation. For these reasons, and to avoid financial liability, jurisdictions will not comply with ICE detainers altogether.

Illinois legislators and advocates set a national example in safeguarding due process by enacting the Illinois Way Forward Act and the VOICES Act, reinforcing Illinois’ commitment to protecting individuals in police custody and victims of crime, respectively.

The economy & community prosperity: Immigrants are essential to this country, contributing to its culture and economy in many ways. According to 2023 data compiled by the American Immigration Council, immigrants in the U.S. contributed over $650 billion in taxes, held $1.7 trillion in spending power, and were more likely to be of working age than their U.S.-born counterparts, making them crucial members of the labor force. In Illinois, immigrants paid over $27 billion in taxes, with 2.5 times the spending power, and over 27 percent of entrepreneurs were immigrants.

Undocumented immigrants contributed a staggering $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022, according to ITEP. More than a third of the taxes paid by undocumented workers went toward Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance, programs from which they are barred. Illinois relied on $1.5 billion in tax revenue from undocumented workers in 2022.

Welcoming policies enable individuals and families to live, thrive, and contribute fully. In the same 2017 CAP study, ICE also reported better economic outcomes. On average, median household incomes and labor force participation rates were higher, while poverty rates, unemployment rates, and reliance on public assistance were lower. When immigrants do better, we all do better.

1. A mixed-status family is where one or more members of a household are undocumented and all other members are either naturalized, US-born citizens, or permanent residents, or have another lawful immigration status. ↩︎
2. The term “chilling effect” is widely used to mean that immigrants and their families who have used public benefits and services in the past, or might have done so in the future, choose not to participate out of confusion or fear of real or perceived immigration consequences. ↩︎