The County Prosecutors Who Became ICE Informants

This story was produced in partnership with Injustice Watch, a nonprofit newsroom in Chicago focused on the court system.

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.”

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.

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...

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