Harold Washington College first-year student Zaure Bakytbekova has been worried about more than assignments and test scores lately.
She replays the months last fall when federal immigration agents, often masked and armed, dragged people off the streets in Chicago and tear-gassed protesters who criticized the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign.
Colleges were not immune. Agents detained an Elgin Community College student in a campus parking lot in September. Weeks later, agents detained a woman just off the University of Illinois Chicago campus, sparking a student protest.
Federal officials threatened to return in greater force this spring.
Those threats haven’t materialized, but to be safe, Bakytbekova has continued the habits she picked up when U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino and his agents were stomping through the city, detaining immigrants like herself by the thousands.
“This could happen to everybody,” she said.
Bakytbekova, who is in the United States on a student visa, prepares her route before leaving her apartment, vigilantly carries her ID and other documentation everywhere and asks her brother or sister-in-law to drive her around to lessen her chances of being stopped on foot.
“I always had this stress every day going out of my apartment,” she said.
Illinois legislators passed a law last December aimed at protecting students like Bakytbekova. It requires public colleges and universities to establish protocols for what to do if immigration agents come on campus and to provide students with information about how to respond.
Some schools did this on their own before. And states including California have issued guidance. But Illinois is perhaps the only state that requires public colleges to have policies about immigration enforcement on college campuses. Immigrant rights advocates have touted the law as a model that other states could adopt.
But, four months after requirements for public colleges went into effect, a Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ investigation has found that many fell short of meeting their conditions.
The Sun-Times and WBEZ contacted all 12 public universities in the state and a dozen community college systems in the Chicago area and found that most don’t spell out protocols for documenting interactions with immigration agents and notifying students and staff if immigration agents are looking for them.
Three colleges failed to list a contact on their website to report immigration agents on campus, perhaps the most useful piece of the law for students. And college students said they didn’t know their school was supposed to have these protocols in place by Jan. 1.
That has some students and immigration rights advocates concerned that immigrant students aren’t getting the protections that lawmakers intended.
“That is pretty alarming,” said Jennifer Juárez, the Latino Policy Forum’s higher education director. “I know our students were very vocal about not feeling safe going to campus or not feeling that their institution had the right protocols.”
Colleges lack required protocols
Many students and staff members say their college or university didn’t do much to inform people on campus about updated policies or other ways they’d responded to the law’s requirements.
Emilia Mancero, a senior at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who grew up in Belmont Cragin, said that, despite being involved in immigration advocacy on campus, she didn’t know about the law or her school’s procedures until a reporter informed her.
“I think that there definitely needs to be more materials distributed to students,” said Mancero, president of the campus group Illinois Coalition Assisting Undocumented Students’ Education. “I knew that the school was doing something, and I think that that was OK, but I think there just needs to be more transparency.”
Across Illinois, there are more than 27,000 undocumented college students and more than 64,000 international students who need a visa to study in the United States, according to a data-tracker maintained by the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, a national group of college leaders that advocates for immigrant students. Those numbers represent about 1 in 10 college students statewide.
Though federal immigration activity is less visible now, Mancero said that the undocumented and other immigrant students she works with are still fearful and would benefit from knowing their school’s protocols.
“It can be really hard to already deal with everything that you have to deal with being undocumented, but, on top of that, adding that layer of political pressure and just animosity in the world toward your own existence as a student, as a person,” Mancero said. “We don’t know when it’s going to go away, if it’s going to come back. But we know that what you do have right now is this education.”
Under the law, public colleges are required to identify a person or department that will handle reports of immigration agents on campus and consult with lawyers. Public colleges are barred from disclosing a student or employee’s immigration status unless required by a warrant signed by a federal judge. Colleges also must keep records on interactions with agents, notify students or staff members if immigration agents are looking for them and put a contact on their website to reach if agents are spotted on campus.
But, of the 24 schools that provided their procedures, only the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of Illinois Chicago, Illinois State University, Northern Illinois University, Elgin Community College and Morton College are following all four requirements on how to handle immigration agents on campus, the Sun-Times and WBEZ found.
UIC began to hand out cards in January 2025 that encouraged students to call the university’s police department if they saw immigration agents on campus.
Alex Hagan, a UIC graduate student and teaching assistant, said he’s seen more outreach and support for immigrant students since the law took effect.
Hagan, an organizer with Sanctuary for All, which advocates for UIC’s immigrant students, said he’s seen more immigration know-your-rights sessions on campus, though he wants them to be mandatory for students and offered in several languages. The law says schools can’t block students and staffers from participating in immigration-related training, but it doesn’t require them.
“While posting things on a website is in compliance with this, we really think there should be more of an effort to be bringing people in,” Hagan said.
Gioconda Guerra Pérez, interim vice chancellor for access, civil rights and community at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said the school built on its existing procedures for handling immigration enforcement to comply with the law.
Last fall’s Operation Midway Blitz helped administrators learn more about what students and staff members needed to feel safe, she said, and they incorporated that in the updated policy.
She said university administrators generally knew how to handle immigration enforcement concerns. But the Trump administration’s aggressive and fast-moving enforcement tactics made Pérez realize that people on campus needed more information. So administrators shared an infographic with key points and offered workshops to employees and students about how the college handles enforcement.
She said she also wanted to ensure that students know their privacy is protected by the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and that the school won’t disclose their immigration status, Social Security number, address or other personal information to immigration agents. That was posted alongside other immigration information on the college’s website.
“The safety of our students, making sure that our campus is a welcoming and accessible environment for all,” were priorities, said Pérez, who is also an undocumented student liaison.
Some schools went beyond the law and provided help that wasn’t mandated, like posting answers to “frequently asked questions” and resources in Spanish and other languages. Waubonsee Community College used language that was especially sensitive to vulnerable students. The College of DuPage offered extra tips for staff working with immigrant students.
But the City Colleges of Chicago, Oakton Community College and Harper Community College in the northwest suburbs and Western Illinois University in Macomb haven’t complied with three of the four key requirements.
The City Colleges — with seven community colleges across the city that have a total of about 70,000 students — designated the security director to handle reports of immigration agents on campus. But the procedures provided to the Sun-Times and WBEZ don’t lay out how staff members are supposed to document interactions with immigration agents or notify staff or students if agents are looking for information about them. And there’s no contact for reporting sightings of agents on the school system’s website.
Katheryn Hayes, a City Colleges spokesperson, pointed to the general phone number on each campus’ website for the safety and security office, saying that’s the number to call for anything “law enforcement” related. But there’s no explicit direction to call that number to report immigration enforcement activity.
She also said City Colleges notifies students and staff if an agent arrives on campus with a subpoena or judicial warrant looking for them. The law requires notification for any agent activity but Hayes insisted that isn’t necessary because City Colleges doesn’t allow federal agents on campus unless they have a subpoena or warrant.
“As a welcoming college community, City Colleges follows city and state laws regarding immigration enforcement,” spokesperson Veronica Resa said. “City Colleges has kept its messaging simple: Security takes the lead. Students, faculty and staff should contact college security if they encounter immigration enforcement.”
At Harold Washington College, part of the City Colleges system, Bakytbekova said she wasn’t aware of a way to report immigration agents on campus. She said she has had to ask her school for information about being an immigrant on campus because it isn’t readily available.
“They would give out some information but only if I was the one who was approaching [and] researching about this information,” Bakytbekova said. “But I know many students are not aware that these resources are available.”
Oakton and Harper both list a number on their websites to call if an agent is seen on campus. But their procedures don’t say how they would document interactions with immigration agents or inform students and staff if agents were looking for them. And there’s no department or team designated to handle reports of immigration agents on campus and consult with lawyers.
A Harper spokesperson said the college has processes “embedded in established roles and standard operating practices” that comply with the law’s requirements.
“Harper College remains committed to maintaining a safe, supportive and welcoming environment for all students, including our immigrant and undocumented students, with support including ‘Know Your Rights’ programming, free immigration legal services, targeted support and access to counseling, wellness and basic needs resources,” according to the spokesperson.
Oakton said it meets the requirements through its internal policies, which a spokesperson wouldn’t provide, citing security concerns.
A Western Illinois University spokesperson said the college has met the four requirements the Sun-Times and WBEZ looked at by listing the Office of Public Safety’s phone number on a webpage listing supports for undocumented students.
Students ask for better communication
Some say more needs to be done to let immigrant students know what information they are entitled to and how to find it.
Mancero said the climate at U. of I. has improved since last fall, when she worried that federal agents might come to campus and signs were posted on classroom doors saying they are private spaces that agents couldn’t enter.
She wants schools to do more to communicate with their students and staff.
“Had I received that in an email or a public announcement about it, I think it would have come across so much better to so many people,” Mancero said. “I’m frustrated that I didn’t hear about it before.”
Juárez of the Latino Policy Forum said her organization is making videos for students to break down the law’s requirements.
The law doesn’t require colleges to mark which parts of campus are considered private and off-limits to federal agents, Hagan said colleges should hang more signs making clear, for instance, that this includes classrooms and buildings that require a student ID to enter.
Some schools make information, like who to contact if agents are on campus, hard to find, putting it deep within their websites. Others provide information that might not be clear.
Some colleges mentioned federal agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, while others used terms like “external law enforcement” or a “non-WIU law enforcement agent.”
Many colleges have designated their own police departments as the point of contact, though, under the Illinois TRUST Act, campus police are prohibited from working with federal agents.
Students of color might be particularly suspicious of police, according to Hagan, who said that having police respond to a situation involving immigration agents can feel “contradictory.”
Elgin Community College offers an alternative number if students don’t feel comfortable calling the police.
Hagan said the state law is a good first step but that schools need to follow its requirements and be held accountable if they don’t.
Students and employees can file a civil lawsuit against their college if a school fails to follow certain parts of the law. And the Illinois Legislature, which controls public university budgets, could withhold funding from colleges that fail to comply, according to Fred Tsao, senior policy counsel for the Illinois Coalition of Immigrant and Refugee Rights, which pushed for parts of the law.
Juárez said it’s in schools’ best interest to implement these policies not only because they’re required to do so by law but also because they could lose students if they don’t. She said she knows of several students who left school during Midway Blitz because they didn’t feel safe.
Mancero said it’s comforting to be at the U. of I.
“I’m thankful that we’re one of the better ones,” Mancero said, regarding compliance with the law. “But I think there’s always more to do.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated to clarify that UIC began handing out cards to students about who to call if they saw immigration agents on campus before the law took effect. This story also reflects updates to Morton College and Northern Illinois University’s policies since the story first published and clarifies City Colleges of Chicago’s policies.
Mary Norkol and Lisa Kurian Philip cover higher education for the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ in partnership with Open Campus.