Illinois is failing to protect immigrant victims of crime or trafficking, according to a new report from the University of Chicago. Those who work with migrants say the crimes against immigrants range from labor trafficking to forced sex acts.
The report released Thursday reveals widespread violations by the state’s law enforcement agencies of an act that attempts to provide greater access to protections for immigrants who are victims of crime or human trafficking.
Amid a migrant crisis in Chicago in which over 42,000 people have arrived in the city in nearly two years sent on buses from the southern border, the report shines a light on an intractable problem: that some will inevitably be victims of crime but won’t rely on police or law enforcement agencies for support because they’re worried they will face trouble with the law for their immigration status.
“They don’t know anything about the U.S. legal system. They don’t know anything about the immigration system. They may come from countries where they can’t trust the police,” said Nicole Hallett, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School, who authored the report.
Hallett said the widespread lack of compliance with the 2019 act — Voices of Immigrant Communities Empowering Survivors — points to the fact that law enforcement agencies in Illinois are decentralized.
“It’s been five years,” she said. “But the fact … that there are still so many agencies that are out of compliance suggests that there’s some sort of breakdown.”
The VOICES Act was passed by the Illinois legislature five years ago and seeks to provide greater access to U and T visa programs. These visas promote immigrants’ cooperation with law enforcement without fear of deportation and allow recipients to apply for lawful permanent residence after three years.
To qualify for a U visa, an applicant must be a victim of a crime within the United States and have suffered substantial physical or mental abuse as a result. U visas cover domestic violence and sexual assault, blackmail and extortion, among other crimes. T visas cover human trafficking.
Immigration advocates and researchers consider these visas essential to ensuring that victims of crime feel comfortable working with law enforcement without being penalized.
They say people who don’t have housing or can’t work legally are particularly vulnerable to trafficking. But there is little to no way to evaluate how many victims there are in any given community, said Erika Asgeirsson, who oversees the Counter-Trafficking Project at the National Immigrant Justice Center.
“Data is really hard to come by … because people don’t necessarily identify as a survivor of human trafficking,” she said.
The act is one of several Illinois laws to protect the rights of immigrants. It mandates law enforcement agencies designate a certifying official to spread information about the U and T visa application process.
That official is supposed to receive training to help the victims understand how to apply, and lead them through the application process. But the law does not specify guidelines about the training, nor does it allocate a funding source.
Additionally, agencies under the act are supposed to submit annual reports about certification forms to the Illinois attorney general’s office. If agencies aren’t complying with requirements, the attorney general is supposed to lead an investigation and can sue if it thinks the agency is in the wrong.
Researchers at the U. of C. set out two years ago to produce a manual for immigrants in Illinois so people could understand how to seek out U and T visas. They quickly discovered that many law enforcement agencies didn’t know about the visas and had never heard of the VOICES Act. So, they decided to do a more formal study about the act’s impact.
The research team contacted 306 state attorney’s offices, sheriff’s offices and police departments. Through hundreds of records and interviews, it became clear that though the act had laudable goals, it remains under-implemented across the state, the researchers said.
Of the near 300 agencies that responded, 42% did not have a designated certifying official, and few had the training, the report states. Just 17% of responding agencies complied with the requirement of making sure crime victims know the act exists, according to the report.
Many agencies seemed confused about the act’s purpose, researchers wrote. They stated they didn’t have immigrants in their area, or at least any who were victims of crime or trafficking. Some were dismissive of the act’s importance, the report said. There had been little communication with the attorney general since the act’s passage, the report stated.
Ultimately, Hallett recommends that each agency have its own written procedure, identify as many places as possible to publicize the act, and receive training from the attorney general, among other steps to ensure there is consistent compliance with the act. But Hallett said even these measures would scratch the surface of what is needed to ensure migrants who are victims of serious crime can get U and T visas.
Luisa Rodriguez, legal clinic coordinator at Centro de Trabajadores Unidos, who helps run a weekly clinic to assist community members with immigration issues and questions — including U and T visa prospects — said she warns people the visa application process is complicated.
She said just the documentation alone is lengthy: a psychiatric evaluation, letters of support from the applicant’s inner circle of family and friends, a statement from the applicant and a certification from the police. It can take months to complete.
“And this is just the time it takes to prepare the application. Community members should be aware that the entire process could take up to 10 years,” she said in a statement to the Tribune.
With more new arrivals in Chicago, many fleeing violence in their countries of origin and in situations of desperation upon arrival, the need for these services is even higher, said Cynthia Gonzalez, an anti-trafficking outreach specialist for the Cook County human trafficking task force.
The task force is a joint project of the Cook County state’s attorney’s office and the Salvation Army STOP-IT Program that supports victims of human trafficking. Gonzalez said she has seen more migrants in her program since busing started in 2022.
“My role has changed a little bit working with more migrants and being the only Spanish speaker in my unit,” she said.
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said many of the task force employees have been victims of trafficking themselves. When asked about the state law, he said he worries about a requirement that puts the onus of care for victims on police officials who don’t have a similar background or understanding to the immigrants seeking help.
“In most departments, it’s going to probably be a very well-meaning police officer who has maybe a modicum of information on the act, but probably very little historical understanding of immigration and trafficking — the ups and downs of that world,” he said.
Representatives from the Chicago Police Department and the Cook County state’s attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
In collaboration with the city, Gonzalez helps lead training for migrants in about six of 17 shelters across the city, she said, an effort that started late last summer. She teaches them where to look for signs and who traffickers might be.
“A lot of them don’t identify at first as victims until after the training,” Gonzalez said. “A lot of times they’re like: ‘Oh my god, that was my situation. I had no idea that was a crime.’”
