The County Prosecutors Who Became ICE Informants
The County Prosecutors Who Became ICE Informants
成为移民及海关执法局（ICE）线人的县检察官们
This story was produced in partnership with Injustice Watch, a nonprofit newsroom in Chicago focused on the court system. 本报道由芝加哥非营利新闻机构“不公正观察”（Injustice Watch）合作完成，该机构专注于报道法院系统。
Rolando Perez Samayoa had come to the US in 2023 seeking safety. Fleeing violence in Mexico, he’d first planned to make a life in Alabama but had been told that Illinois would protect immigrants like him. “There’s some kind of law there,” he said. “It’s supposed to be a sanctuary.” 罗兰多·佩雷斯·萨马约亚（Rolando Perez Samayoa）于2023年来到美国寻求安全。为了逃离墨西哥的暴力，他最初计划在阿拉巴马州生活，但有人告诉他，伊利诺伊州会保护像他这样的移民。“那里有某种法律，”他说，“据说那里是避难所。”
He was referring to the state’s 2017 TRUST Act, which was meant to keep local law enforcement out of federal deportation efforts. Samayoa made his way to southern Illinois and found work cleaning a factory. After a DUI arrest in Marion County last October, Samayoa said, he attended his hearings—a fact confirmed by court records. 他指的是该州2017年颁布的《信任法》（TRUST Act），该法旨在防止地方执法部门参与联邦的驱逐行动。萨马约亚前往伊利诺伊州南部，在一家工厂找到了一份清洁工作。萨马约亚表示，去年10月在马里昂县因酒驾被捕后，他按时参加了听证会——法院记录证实了这一点。
In late January, John Christeson, an assistant state’s attorney in the office prosecuting the case, emailed an agent with Homeland Security Investigations, a division of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, about Samayoa. The message included his date of birth, an upcoming court date, and where he lived: Centralia, Illinois. 1月下旬，负责该案起诉工作的助理州检察官约翰·克里斯蒂森（John Christeson）就萨马约亚的情况，向美国移民及海关执法局（ICE）下属的国土安全调查处（HSI）的一名探员发送了电子邮件。邮件内容包括他的出生日期、即将到来的出庭日期以及他的居住地：伊利诺伊州森特勒利亚（Centralia）。
“Ok, we’ll take care of it, thank you,” the federal agent, Sergio Fulgencio, wrote back minutes later. Two days later, he wanted to know more: “Do you have any reports on this guy?” “好的，我们会处理的，谢谢，”联邦探员塞尔吉奥·富尔根西奥（Sergio Fulgencio）在几分钟后回复道。两天后，他想了解更多信息：“你有关于这个人的任何报告吗？”
Christeson sent him the police report and related tickets. Three weeks later, federal agents apprehended Samayoa outside his home. They hauled off his 17-year-old son, too. 克里斯蒂森将警方报告和相关罚单发送给了他。三周后，联邦探员在萨马约亚家门外将其逮捕。他们还带走了他17岁的儿子。
The exchange is among dozens of emails reviewed by Injustice Watch that reveal a pattern of consequential collaboration between county prosecutors and federal immigration agencies across Illinois during the first 15 months of President Donald Trump’s second term. 这段交流是“不公正观察”审查的数十封电子邮件之一，这些邮件揭示了在唐纳德·特朗普总统第二任期的前15个月里，伊利诺伊州各县检察官与联邦移民机构之间存在一种具有严重后果的合作模式。
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. 伊利诺伊州六分之一的县州检察官办公室充当了联邦移民执法的“宝贵资产”，他们在没有刑事逮捕令、未公开披露或立法监督的情况下，共享了被起诉者的敏感个人数据，且没有任何关于此类事件发生频率或受影响人数的统计。
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. 有时，检察官会主动提供信息。另一些时候，他们只是在国土安全部探员询问时予以回应。这些通信跨越了党派界限，参与者从律师助理到民选州检察官不等。这种合作通常是在被告及其律师不知情的情况下进行的。
The TRUST Act bars police and other agencies from helping federal agents deport people absent a federal criminal warrant. But the law doesn’t squarely answer whether prosecutors and their staff are bound by those same restrictions. 《信任法》禁止警察和其他机构在没有联邦刑事逮捕令的情况下协助联邦探员驱逐人员。但该法律并未明确回答检察官及其工作人员是否受到同样的限制。
Since Trump took office for the second time, his administration has ramped up immigration enforcement, detention, and deportation, and ICE has visibly displayed its enforcement at worksites, front yards, and courthouses. In response, states including New York have joined Illinois and more than a dozen others in barring local police and sheriffs from helping with federal immigration enforcement. But the scale of prosecutor collaboration in Illinois—which is one of the largest sanctuary states and is often cited as a national model—raises questions about the limitations of state laws to protect immigrants. 自特朗普第二次就职以来，其政府加强了移民执法、拘留和驱逐力度，ICE在工作场所、居民前院和法院的执法行动随处可见。作为回应，包括纽约州在内的多个州加入了伊利诺伊州及其他十几个州的行列，禁止当地警察和治安官协助联邦移民执法。然而，伊利诺伊州——作为最大的避难州之一，常被视为全国典范——检察官合作的规模，引发了人们对州法律保护移民能力的局限性的质疑。
Injustice Watch filed Freedom of Information Act requests with all 102 Illinois state’s attorney’s offices and drew on records from federal and circuit courts. Together, those internal emails and case files ran more than 5,000 pages. The documents reveal that 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. “不公正观察”向伊利诺伊州全部102个州检察官办公室提交了《信息自由法》（FOIA）请求，并调取了联邦法院和巡回法院的记录。这些内部电子邮件和案件档案总计超过5000页。文件显示，检察官共享的内容远不止姓名。他们的邮件中包含照片、家庭住址，以及被告预定出庭或获释的时间——这正是ICE实施逮捕的精确窗口期。
Eleven offices didn’t respond; some produced records only after Injustice Watch sued them under FOIA. The rest remain in litigation. 有11个办公室没有回应；一些办公室是在“不公正观察”根据《信息自由法》起诉他们后才提供了记录。其余的案件仍在诉讼中。
And the written record may be only part of the story. Messages with phrases like “Thank you for taking my call” point to conversations no records requests could follow. 书面记录可能只是故事的一部分。诸如“感谢您接听我的电话”之类的短语，指向了任何记录请求都无法追踪到的通话。
None of it was inevitable. Dozens of Illinois county prosecutors, faced with the same federal pressure, claimed they had no record of contact with ICE, and at least one made a point of shutting it out—suggesting every act of collaboration was a choice. 这一切并非不可避免。面对同样的联邦压力，伊利诺伊州数十名县检察官声称他们没有与ICE联系的记录，至少有一位检察官明确表示拒绝合作——这表明每一次合作行为都是一种选择。
And the choices had consequences: People flagged to ICE were detained and deported, tearing families apart. 而这些选择带来了后果：被标记给ICE的人遭到拘留和驱逐，导致家庭破碎。
DHS did not answer questions about how its agents work with local officials in Illinois. 国土安全部未回应关于其探员如何与伊利诺伊州地方官员合作的问题。
Antonio Gutierrez, who cofounded the advocacy group Organized Communities Against Deportations, was among those who pushed for the TRUST Act. Residents wanted “to trust in local police, in local prosecutors, in the criminal justice system, to be fully separated from immigration and deportation enforcement,” Gutierrez said. 倡导组织“反对驱逐的有组织社区”（Organized Communities Against Deportations）的联合创始人安东尼奥·古铁雷斯（Antonio Gutierrez）是推动《信任法》的人士之一。古铁雷斯说，居民们希望“信任当地警察、当地检察官和刑事司法系统，使其与移民和驱逐执法完全脱钩”。
The records revealed in Injustice Watch’s investigation, Gutierrez said, prove that trust was never warranted. 古铁雷斯表示，“不公正观察”调查中披露的记录证明，这种信任从未得到过保障。
The Ones Who Were Willing
那些“乐意”的人
Twenty minutes after flagging Samayoa, Marion County’s Christeson emailed Fulgencio again. “I’ve got another potential,” he wrote, flagging a man with a local warrant who had been arrested on an unrelated charge in Missouri. 在标记萨马约亚20分钟后，马里昂县的克里斯蒂森再次给富尔根西奥发了邮件。“我还有另一个潜在目标，”他写道，并标记了一名持有当地逮捕令、但在密苏里州因无关指控被捕的男子。
Fulgencio replied that agents were already tracking the man on a civil removal order—a deportation order from an immigration court—and asked whether the county warrant should take priority. “Our warrant will not take priority over removal,” Christeson answered. 富尔根西奥回复称，探员们已经在根据一项民事驱逐令（来自移民法院的驱逐令）追踪该男子，并询问县逮捕令是否应优先执行。“我们的逮捕令不会优先于驱逐令，”克里斯蒂森回答道。
Fulgencio wrote back just 34 minutes later: “He’s in ICE Custody awaiting removal.” 富尔根西奥在34分钟后回复：“他已被ICE拘留，等待驱逐。”
Christeson didn’t respond to questions about his correspondence with Fulgencio, nor did his boss, Marion County State’s Attorney Tim Hudspeth. 克里斯蒂森没有回应关于他与富尔根西奥通信的问题，他的上司、马里昂县州检察官蒂姆·哈德斯佩斯（Tim Hudspeth）也没有回应。
Criminal cases offer protections that immigration proceedings don’t: Prosecutors must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and attorneys are appointed to defendants who can’t afford one. Removal proceedings are civil: There’s no right to an appointed lawyer, and the government can establish deportability on “clear and convincing evidence,” a lower legal standard. 刑事案件提供了移民诉讼所不具备的保护：检察官必须在排除合理怀疑的情况下证明有罪，且为无力负担律师费的被告指派律师。而驱逐程序属于民事性质：被告没有权利获得指派律师，政府只需以“清晰且令人信服的证据”（一种较低的法律标准）即可确立驱逐理由。