A data broker that allows users to obtain information about incarcerated people could be a digital backdoor enabling U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to access the personal data of thousands of immigrants in Cook County.
At a Cook County Board meeting last year, commissioners raised concerns about the Sheriff’s use of the system, called VINE (Victim Information [and] Notification Everyday), but voted to keep it. VINE notifies crime victims when an offender or defendant is released from jail, transferred, or has a change in custody status.
ICE’s access to that data goes far beyond the public’s, letting agents combine VINE jail records with personal data to build profiles that can pinpoint where people live and work. Immigrant rights advocates contend that the data, intended for victim notification, has been repurposed into commercial databases ICE uses to locate and arrest immigrants.
Now, advocates are renewing their push to get the Board to amend the County’s contract with VINE after its current contract ends in November.
In 2011, the Cook County Board adopted a “sanctuary” ordinance that prohibits sheriffs from assisting ICE or the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with immigrant “detainers,” which are requests to alert them when incarcerated immigrants are due to be released. The ordinance also bars the use of county resources to enforce federal immigration laws. This policy stands apart from Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance and the Illinois TRUST Act, both of which also limit law enforcement officers from cooperating with ICE’s administrative detention and deportation efforts.
Since 2015, however, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) has shared real‑time incarceration and release data with Appriss, the company that operates the VINE victim‑notification system. Appriss Insights is owned by Equifax, an American company best known for consumer credit reporting. Under Cook County’s contract, a “risk solutions” clause allows Appriss to share jail data with other companies, including LexisNexis Risk Solutions. LexisNexis then packages that data into its Accurint database. Accurint is used by ICE to locate and track individuals, according to a 2022 report by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
Advocates aren’t asking the Board to get rid of VINE altogether, but instead want commissioners to amend the company’s contract to remove a “risk solutions” clause that authorizes Appriss to share certain jail data with outside companies, including LexisNexis Risk Solutions. LexisNexis has an active contract with ICE worth up to $22.1 million that grants the agency access to real-time data on jail bookings, as well as names, addresses, court records, driver’s license information, phone data, and more.
Community concerns about ICE’s access to this data have been intensifying over the years according to Cinthya Rodriguez, formerly a national organizer at Mijente who led the #NoTechforICE campaign to expose data-driven surveillance of immigrant communities.
Rodriguez said some people across the U.S. have been picked up by ICE in ways that suggest data-driven surveillance, even in cases where individuals had little or no criminal history.
“Folks were tracking deportation cases, and everyone just kind of had the same question, no matter what part of the country people were in,” she said. “Everyone was asking, ‘What help is ICE getting? How are they getting access to people’s names and addresses, where they work, what car they’re driving?’”
Rodriguez shared the story of Francisco, a member of the immigrant rights organization Centro Sin Fronteras. Francisco was detained in 2022 by ICE on Chicago’s North Side. “He was taking a shower when ICE came in and literally pulled him out of his house,” she said. The incident raised urgent questions among community members. “People were asking, ‘how did ICE know where he was living and that he was at home at that exact moment?’”
Francisco’s detention prompted Just Futures Law, a legal and advocacy organization that partners with grassroots groups to dismantle mass surveillance systems, to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that year with ICE. The documents they obtained confirmed that ICE’s Chicago field office used LexisNexis tools to run over 13,000 searches for civil immigration enforcement in 2021.
In 2022, Cook County Commissioner Alma Anaya (7th District) introduced a resolution calling for an investigation into how the personal data of Cook County residents was being shared or sold—a practice which could violate local and state sanctuary laws, advocates warned. Anaya joined immigrant rights organizers at a press conference to demand action from the Board of Commissioners. On July 27, 2022, the Board held a public meeting to examine the issue.
During the meeting, commissioners heard testimony from members of the public and expert witnesses who argued that VINE was effectively a “digital loophole” to the County’s sanctuary ordinance. Representatives from Just Futures Law recommended the Board amend its sanctuary law to ban indirect data-sharing with ICE. They also recommended auditing existing contracts that share jail or court data and strengthening future agreements to explicitly restrict third-party access or resale of sensitive information. The goal, they emphasized, is to prevent local data collection from quietly fueling federal immigration enforcement.
But when the County’s contract with Appriss expired in October 2024, the Board voted to extend it another year, despite mounting pressure from immigrant rights groups. Members of organizations such as Mijente, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, and Organized Communities Against Deportations (OCAD) attended the meeting and spoke out against the dangers of the loophole.
In January, emergency calls to OCAD’s Family Support Network and Hotline increased significantly: Where they got a few calls per day in 2024, they were now getting between 100 and 150.
Xanat Sobrevilla, an organizer with OCAD who helps families navigate the uncertainty that comes when a loved one is picked up by ICE without warning, is concerned about how ICE obtains information that leads to arrests and finds people in ways that community members don’t understand—often without warrants or clear justification. “We’re seeing people picked up, and it’s raising red flags about how ICE is finding them so quickly,” she said.
While no formal vote date has been set by the Board of Commissioners, another decision is expected to come before the contract’s new expiration in late 2025.
“We have every reason to think that this LexisNexis tool is one of the key tools in ICE’s toolbox to find people,” said Laura Rivera, a senior staff attorney at Just Futures Law. “ICE doesn’t have to go into jails—the data comes to them.”
On June 3, the Weekly sent a FOIA request to ICE for recent documents related to use of LexisNexis Accurint and Appriss by agents in its Chicago field office. A response to that request remains overdue.
Advocates say LexisNexis also collects Cook County residents’ data through other channels—and that can affect people without a criminal history, as commercial databases like Accurint pull from a vast web of public records, consumer data, and online activity.
Claudia Marchan, the executive director of Northern Illinois Justice for Our Neighbors, testified at an October 2024 Cook County Board meeting about how these data-sharing practices had affected her personally, even though she has never been arrested or involved in the court system. “I was never arrested. I was never convicted. I am not in the court system. And yet, my personal information still showed up in a law enforcement database because of LexisNexis,” she said.
Mijente’s Rodriguez, who also attended that meeting, told the Weekly that some officials said they had heard about the issue before the meeting but were unclear on the contract details, while others seemed unaware of the data-sharing implications until that day. “Everyone was just kind of like, ‘we had no idea,’ or pointing fingers at each other,” Rodriguez said.
Marchan said she requested a copy of her data file from LexisNexis, and was surprised to find it was forty-six pages long.
“I was really shocked,” she told the Weekly. “What struck me most was seeing my full Social Security number listed and even detailed information about my family members. I come from a mixed-status family, and if that kind of information ended up in ICE’s hands, it could put many of us in danger.” She added that she hopes the Board will eventually “make a decision that shows the community that [they’re] backing them up.”
According to Rivera, Marchan’s data likely entered LexisNexis’s system through a network of public and commercial records such as utility bills, mortgage filings, or consumer databases rather than any connection to the jail system or VINE.
Still, Marchan’s case shows the scope and danger of these commercial surveillance systems and why advocates say Cook County should not be feeding its jail data into them.
Through a $22.1 million contract with LexisNexis, ICE has access to detailed personal reports like Marchan’s—part of a vast database that includes information on both citizens and noncitizens. LexisNexis, widely recognized for its legal research tools, also operates as a powerful data broker.
In that October 2024 Board meeting, Adam Newman, a special assistant for governmental and legislative affairs in the State’s Attorney’s Office, directly addressed concerns about Appriss’s contract. He revealed publicly that Equifax, Appriss’s parent company, had warned the County that removing ICE access could result in a higher contract price.
He also said that Appriss provided a written assurance that Cook County Jail data would not be shared with ICE through LexisNexis platforms. The Weekly reached out to a CCSAO spokesperson for comment and requested a copy of the written assurance, but did not receive a response.
Immigrant rights advocates say this agreement is not enough, since there’s no legal enforcement or transparency to ensure compliance. Newman noted that unlike Cook County’s contract, the New York Department of Corrections’ agreement with Appriss does not have the risk solutions clause, demonstrating that it is possible to structure a contract that does not funnel data to ICE through third parties.
Commissioner Anaya told the Weekly that since the October 2024 vote, the Board has held multiple meetings with stakeholders to address concerns about the Appriss contract. She also noted that New York City’s Appriss contract did not include a risk solutions clause.
“We continue to meet with stakeholders to understand the complexities and challenges of this issue,” Anaya said, “and are working together to ensure the right steps are taken and the right steps are taken without causing unintended consequences.” She added, “At a time when civil liberties are being rolled back across the country, it’s critical that Cook County remain a leader in protecting all people who interact with county government.”
At the October 2024 meeting, the Board approved a one-year renewal of the contract without amendments. Commissioners said they intended to review the contract in the following months. The delay left advocates frustrated by what they called a lack of closer scrutiny on the contract before approving it.
Advocates contend that the County’s relationship with Appriss stands in stark contrast to its public stance as a sanctuary jurisdiction.
Rivera at Just Futures Law explained that it’s hard to trace a direct line between ICE surveillance tools like LexisNexis. ICE is not obligated to record or disclose which surveillance tool or database they used to locate someone, so there’s often no official paper trail connecting the arrest to a specific method or query. “This information usually is not part of a person’s case file with ICE,” Rivera said.
But she said that it’s quite clear from looking at federal procurement documents that ICE considers LexisNexis tools “pivotal to their operations,” Rivera said. “That’s their word, ‘pivotal’. These platforms are essential to how ICE locates and targets individuals, especially in places where local law enforcement can’t legally cooperate.”
In August 2022, immigrant rights groups including Mijente, Just Futures Law, and OCAD filed a lawsuit against LexisNexis Risk Solutions, alleging that LexisNexis was used by ICE to access personal and jail-related data without consent, violating Illinois privacy and consumer protection laws. Marchan was also a plaintiff.
Their concern is that the LexisNexis Risk Solutions platform, Accurint, acts as a digital pipeline that allows ICE to track and target people using data that originally came from local governments, including Cook County, even in sanctuary jurisdictions.
In April 2024, the case was dismissed by a Cook County Circuit Court judge who ruled that the plaintiffs didn’t have legal standing and didn’t show sufficient grounds for the claims.
Advocates say that they’re not opposed to crime-victim notification programs like VINE, but want better safeguards against its misuse by federal immigration agents. “We’re not against keeping survivors informed,” Rivera said. “But why are we paying for a system that also fuels deportations?
“At a minimum, local officials should audit these contracts. If you’re funding something that puts your residents at risk, that’s a public accountability issue,” she added. “Even if this isn’t illegal, that doesn’t make it right. There’s a moral and political responsibility to make sure data isn’t being used to harm the people you’re supposed to protect.”
Alma Campos is the Weekly’s immigration reporter and project editor.
