Chicago mayor blocks ICE access to police databases ahead of raids

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) moved this week to block Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials’ access to the city’s police databases following news of possible raids in Chicago and other major U.S. cities.

Lightfoot said Wednesday that the city has taken steps to ensure that the Chicago Police Department (CPD) will not cooperate with ICE ahead of sweeps that are expected to begin Sunday. 

{mosads}”They will not team up with ICE to detain any resident. We have also cut off ICE access from any CPD databases and that will remain permanent,” she said, adding that she had spoken with the agency’s leadership to object to the planned raids.

“Chicago is and will always be a welcoming city that will never tolerate ICE tearing our families apart,” she said.  

CHICAGO BUSINESS LEADERS ON PROTECTING IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES: The Mayor joins Chicago business leaders to discuss support and protection of immigrant communities. Watch and share: https://t.co/maUfV9Z5qu

— Mayor Lori Lightfoot (@chicagosmayor) July 10, 2019

Chicago police spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi told The Chicago Tribune that ICE agents will not be able to access the city’s Citizen and Law Enforcement Analysis and Reporting database, but other federal agencies will still have access. ICE would be restricted from seeing the department’s incident narratives, arrest information, crime mapping systems and other databases.

“All other federal agencies still have access to these systems, as sharing this information is crucial to active criminal investigations in which we are partnering with federal agencies along with intelligence sharing functions that are vital to national homeland security functions,” he told the newspaper in a statement. 

Some in Chicago have expressed concerns that ICE could still access the city’s data through those federal agencies that use incident and arrest data collected by police. The paper reported that it is not clear whether these other federal agencies will share the data with ICE. 

The Hill has reached out to ICE for comment. 

The New York Times reported Thursday that ICE would begin raids Sunday. The raids were initially planned for last month, but President Trump tweeted late last month that he had delayed the possibility of raids for two weeks.