After years of pressure from immigrant advocates, Cook County officials say they are working to further restrict data sharing through a county vendor contract that critics say exposes a gap in local sanctuary protections.The debate centers on a contract with Appriss Insights LLC, the company that op erates the state’s victim notification system known as VINE, which alerts crime victims when an accused person is released from jail, transferred or experiences a change in custody status. Advocates have argued for years that data provided to Appriss could move beyond county systems and into commercial databases like LexisNexis that are accessible to agencies like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They allege ICE is able to access information that includes names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, custody status dates, release information, court hearing details, and other sensitive personal data. Advocates say ICE's contract with LexisNexis includes an add-on for a database called Justice Intelligence, a product offered by Appriss that collects and makes easily searchable release data from U.S. jails and prisons.Illinois’ sanctuary laws limit state and local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities— including sharing information about anyone held at a local jail or prison — unless that person has a federal criminal warrant. But advocates say even though Cook County isn’t sharing this information directly, a clause in the contract offers a back door around sanctuary laws since it allows Appriss to share jail data that federal immigration agencies are increasingly relying on.The non-profit legal advocacy group A Just Futures Law obtained data through a public records request that showed ICE’s Chicago field office ran more than 13,000 LexisNexis searches from March to September 2021, generating about 1,800 reports for immigration enforcement. Nationally, ICE accessed data on more than 276 million people during that period, according to the non-profit.Just Futures Law and other organizations sued the agency after they said ICE failed to turn over more recent records.A new report on the use of technology for immigration enforcement released by Just Futures Law, Mijente and the Surveillance Resistance Lab points to Cook County as an example of how local data can move through third party systems even in places that limit cooperation with ICE.“This is why we’ve been raising alarms for years,” said Jacinta González, a senior campaign organizer with Mijente. “When these loopholes are allowed to exist, they’re going to lead to concrete harm. They’re going to lead to people being detained and people being deported.”Don Black, chief of staff to Cook County States Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke, said the office is working with Appriss on new contract language that would further restrict data sharing.“The goal is to close any ambiguity in the contract and make sure the data is used only for the purpose it was intended,” Black said.He says discussions about changing the contract began before Operation Midway Blitz, though recent immigration enforcement activity in Chicago increased the urgency.Black said the county is also in the process of accepting bids for a new vendor as the current Appriss contract expires in October 2026.Cook County Commissioner Alma Anaya, who first raised concerns about the Appriss contract before the County Board in 2022, said the county should take a more proactive approach by building data protections into contracts before vendors are selected. “...So that we don’t have to scrutinize contracts at the tail end, but actually implement it with that expectation in the RFP process,” Anaya said.The current contract with Appriss that expires in October is worth more than $1.3 million, according to county records.For Mijente’s Jacinta González, the larger question is whether sanctuary policies written for an earlier era of immigration enforcement can keep pace with a system increasingly powered by data.“The problem is that ICE no longer needs a direct call from a local official if it can get the same information through a private database,” González says. ...read more read less