Repeatedly arrested immigrant was released seven times before killing a Freeport woman in head-on collision.
A tragic head-on collision on August 9 has sparked outrage and renewed debate over Illinois’s sanctuary laws after a U.S. citizen was killed by a man who had been released from local custody seven times despite federal requests to detain him.
Rolando Ico-Choc, 30, a Guatemalan national with a history of serious criminal offenses, was driving southbound on Illinois Route 26 when he crossed the center line and crashed head-on into a vehicle driven by Darcy Brunner, 61, of Freeport. Brunner was killed instantly.
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According to officials from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Ico-Choc had been arrested multiple times in recent years for crimes including driving under the influence, endangering a child, domestic battery, and resisting law enforcement. Each time, ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) field office in Chicago issued a detainer request, which asks local authorities to hold an individual for up to 48 hours so federal agents can take them into custody.
However, each of those seven requests was denied. Due to the Illinois Trust Act, a sanctuary law, local law enforcement agencies are prohibited from honoring these detainer requests. This meant that despite his repeated arrests and a longstanding criminal record, Ico-Choc was released back into the community. His most recent conviction in January for a DUI resulted in a sentence of just seven days in jail.
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“This was not an innocent accident. It was a preventable tragedy made possible by policies that release dangerous offenders back onto our streets,” said Shawn Byers, acting field office director for ERO Chicago. “Seven times ICE asked for custody, and seven times local law enforcement was forced to ignore those requests placing the death of this innocent woman directly on the hands of those who voted the Illinois Trust Act into law.”
Byers concluded by asking, “How many more lives must be lost before Illinois lawmakers care enough about their constituents to ensure all law enforcement, federal and local, are able to work together?”
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