As President Donald Trump revamps his promised nationwide crackdown on immigration, federal authorities are taking more aggressive measures to detain undocumented immigrants, including arresting people at check-in appointments and during court hearings.
Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff and chief architect of Trump’s immigration policies, said late last month that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement should make at least 3,000 arrests a day. That would mark a dramatic increase from Jan. 20 to May 19, when the agency made an average of 656 arrests a day.
Last week, protesters, local organizers and aldermen clashed with immigration officials outside a U.S. Customs and Immigration office in the South Loop, where immigrants were told to come in to a check-in appointment at the office. Organizers estimate that at least 20 people were detained last Wednesday. Protests denouncing the raids were held in the Lower West Side Sunday, outside immigration court Tuesday with another planned Federal Plaza Tuesday night.
Chicago is not the only city hit by the wave of immigration arrests. Protests broke out in Los Angeles over the weekend after federal agents arrested immigrants in L.A.’s fashion district, in a Home Depot parking lot and at several other locations on Friday. President Trump ordered the deployment of roughly 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to quell protestors, although the marines so far have only been called to protect federal officers and buildings. Trump has also asked the National Guard to assist in immigration operations, though it is unclear whether that assistance has begun.
Demonstrations have also spread to San Francisco and Santa Ana in California, as well as Dallas and Austin in Texas, though they have not reached the scale of the Los Angeles protests.
In January, the Tribune spoke with Nicole Hallett, a clinical law professor at the University of Chicago, and Diana Rashid, a managing attorney with the National Immigrant Justice Center, to learn more about what happens after someone is arrested by ICE in Illinois.
In light of revamped efforts by the Trump administration, the Tribune updated this story with more information from Hallett about the new wave of arrests.
What is different about ICE arrests this time around
Since Trump took office, Hallett said that immigration raids at homes, restaurants and other places where undocumented immigrants typically work were expected to increase. Collateral arrests — instances where an agent does not have a warrant but has probable cause to believe someone committed an immigration violation — were also expected to increase.
Hallett said that in the past month, federal agents have arrested more people that were not targeted previously, as well as arrest people in places that were not targeted previously.
“In terms of who they’re arresting, they seem to be arresting essentially anyone, and that includes people with no criminal history,” Hallett said. “It includes people who were previously released by immigration authorities and who are proceeding with their immigration case. And it even includes people who have some form of protection from deportation.”
Shortly after taking office, Trump reversed a previous rule that limited ICE activity in areas deemed “sensitive locations,” which includes courthouses. Since that reversal, ICE is now arresting people at immigration court, even if a person’s case for deportation was dismissed.
“They have been arresting people before and after their immigration hearings, which I have to say is just something that I have never seen before,” Hallett said.
While it is allowed under federal law, ICE historically has not detained people before or after an immigration hearing to encourage people to show up to court, Hallett said. If a person does not attend their court hearing, then they will get removal orders in absentia, which means that person lost the chance to make a claim that they should be allowed to stay in the U.S.
“ICE is really putting them between a rock and a hard place,” Hallett said. “They can choose to go to court and risk getting detained, which is very scary and disruptive, or they can choose not to go and then get an absentia order, and then if they do encounter ICE, they will be arrested and can be deported immediately.”
Federal agents also appear to be conducting more arrests during immigration check-in appointments, which is legal and something that also took place during the first Trump administration.
Sometimes, immigration check-ins can be conducted remotely, but if ICE asks someone to come in person to their appointment — which was the case for those arrested last Wednesday — then a person must physically show up for the appointment.
For court hearings, a person can file a motion with immigration court and ask that the hearing be held virtually. However, Hallett said that she has heard that “many immigration judges are denying those motions, and that ICE has been objecting to those motions because they want people to appear in person.”
Part of the reason ICE may be making more courthouse arrests is because it is a relatively easy way for the agency to meet their daily arrest quota.
“They know who is going to be there and at what time, they can plan in advance, and they can get warrants, and they don’t have to do these collateral arrests,” Hallett said.
Considering this development with courthouse arrests, Hallett said that immigrants should plan in advance for the worst possible scenario. That means memorizing phone numbers of trusted contacts and, if applicable, arranging for another person to take care of dependent children in case of arrest.
What happens after someone is arrested by ICE
The first step after making an arrest is to take the arrested person to a processing center where they are interviewed by an ICE agent, fingerprinted and sometimes given the chance to call a loved one. That processing center is usually in the western suburb of Broadview, where detainees are kept for a few hours before they are either released or detained, according to Rashid.
At the processing center, ICE will then decide if it is going to initiate removal proceedings for an individual. If ICE decides to move forward with removal proceedings, it will issue something called a notice to appear, which is a document given to an arrestee that initiates civil immigration proceedings. At the same time, officials will also determine if an arrestee will be detained or released throughout the removal process.
Since Illinois does not have any detention centers due to the Way Forward Act, a state law enacted in 2021 that prohibits cooperation between local law enforcement and federal deportation authorities, detainees are transported to a detention center in a neighboring state, Rashid explained. That typically includes Dodge Detention Facility in Wisconsin, Clay County Jail in Indiana and Boone County Jail in Kentucky.
How long someone can be detained for varies, according to immigration lawyers the Tribune spoke with. If an individual has certain criminal convictions or poses a security risk, they can be subject to mandatory detention by the government. Criminal convictions that could lead to mandatory detention could range from relatively minor criminal offenses to violent crime. The passage of the Laken Riley Act will also now allow the government to detain people for smaller offenses like drug and theft convictions.
Nearly everyone else is up to the discretion of ICE on whether or not they should be detained, Hallett said. Deciding factors that go into that process include whether ICE believes a person is a flight risk, poses a danger to their community or even whether an ICE facility has enough beds to hold someone.
“In many cases, ICE is sort of forced into releasing people because there simply aren’t beds available to detain them,” Hallett said.
What to know about ICE raids in Chicago — and what your rights are
If ICE determines someone can be detained, then that individual has the right to go to immigration court and ask for a bond hearing, Hallett said. Those bonds can range from anywhere between $1,500 to more than $25,000, Hallett said. However, if a person gets denied a bond, a bond hearing or cannot pay their bond, they must wait in the detention facility until their court proceedings are over.
“It can be indefinitely,” Rashid said, referring to how long individuals can stay in detention. Rashid also noted it could be likely that more “noncitizens will be swept up into mandatory custody and not have a right to a bond and will remain detained for as long as it takes for them to resolve their immigration case.”
Under a new executive order signed by Trump, noncitizens who cannot prove they have been in the country for more than two years can be subject to expedited removal, which would also prevent that group of people from having a bond hearing, Rashid said, a new rule that Rashid said she and her team were closely monitoring.
While everyone has the right to an attorney when going through removal proceedings, noncitizens do not have the right to an appointed attorney, meaning that the government does not have to provide them with a lawyer, forcing noncitizens to find their own lawyer.
As a result, Hallett said some people end up using pro bono lawyers from nonprofits or hire private attorneys, although most noncitizens who are in removal proceedings cannot afford a private attorney or can only afford to pay very little.
“They may not get an attorney who’s able to devote the kind of time that’s required to actually succeed in an immigration case,” Hallett said. “If they can’t find an attorney that’s working pro bono or that is retained privately, then they will have to go through those proceedings without an attorney.”
The number of people who go through immigration court with legal representation has increased significantly in the past 10 years, according to data provided by the Vera Institute of Justice based upon an analysis of Executive Office for Immigration Review data. In 2014, there were over 145,000 immigration cases with legal representation, whereas 2024 saw over a million cases with legal representation. But at the same time, the Vera Institute of Justice noted that the number of people in immigration court has increased much more compared with the number of people with legal representation, “causing a drop in the rate of representation even while the number of people with representation in immigration court is at an all-time high.”
Immigrants who go through the legal process with an attorney are more likely to be released from detention and are also more likely to win their removal cases, a 2016 study by the American Immigration Council found.
Hallett noted that even though ICE can detain someone until the conclusion of their removal proceedings, there are lower courts in some states that have ruled that there are constitutional limits to how long ICE can hold someone in detention. Those constitutional limits, however, are determined on a case-by-case basis, according to Rashid. “There isn’t a blanket rule or policy or law that says how long someone can be detained,” Rashid said.
What to do if your loved one gets detained
The first step someone should take if their loved one gets detained is to try to make contact with that person and find out where that person is being held, Hallett said. People can look up where someone is being detained through ICE’s online detainee locator system. Once you are able to locate where someone is being held, you can try to contact the facility and figure out how to communicate directly with the detainee. Hallett also noted it can take up to 48 hours before someone’s name appears in the system since it takes time to send a person to a detention facility and input their information.
“So if you look in the system and they’re not there immediately after arrest, you shouldn’t worry that they’ve been lost in the system,” Hallett said. “It really takes some time.”
The National Immigrant Justice Center also advises people to ask the detainee for their A-number, which they receive upon arrest.
The next step should be to seek legal counsel as quickly as possible from an attorney so that the detainee knows what their rights and options are as well as how they can best “fight their case in immigration court,” Hallett said.
Services that people can contact for legal counsel in Illinois include the National Immigrant Justice Center, Justice Entrepreneurs Project Chicago and Beyond Legal Aid. The Illinois Council for Immigrant and Refugee Rights has also compiled a list of attorney referrals for immigrant matters, which can be found here.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
