INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 8, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Police Association (NPA) has opened a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) public-records investigation into the origins of the Illinois Bivens Act and the Illinois Court Access, Safety, and Participation Act, laws designed to put the men and women enforcing federal immigration law personally in the crosshairs of lawsuits, punitive damages, and political retribution.

The NPA's FOIA requests are seeking drafts, redlines, legal memoranda, meeting records, emails, text messages, and other communications from the offices of Gov. J.B. Pritzker, State Attorney General Kwame Raoul, and the Illinois Senate. The records sought cover the conception, drafting, promotion, and planned enforcement of the laws, including any and all coordination with immigration organizations, civil-rights groups, legal-aid organizations, outside lawyers, lobbyists, and anti-police organizations.

The laws create the authority for illegal aliens and others to sue federal immigration enforcement officers, turning Illinois courts into a venue for illegal aliens and their attorneys to extract money from federal agents.

And Illinois lawmakers went further.

An officer's facial covering, identification practices, body-camera use, vehicle license plates, and even crowd-control equipment can become factors in determining punitive damages. Another provision restricts arrests in and around state courthouses and exposes federal officers to an additional $10,000 in statutory damages.

The public has the right to know whether politicians in Springfield worked hand-in-glove with anti-law enforcement organizations to build this litigation scheme and whether those organizations expect to profit from the lawsuits the new laws authorize.

"It is unacceptable for a state government to declare open season on federal officers because political leaders despise the federal laws those officers were sworn to enforce," said Eddie Hutchison, President of the National Police Association. "Illinois politicians could not repeal federal immigration law, and they could not abolish ICE, so they appear to have chosen to make the enforcement of federal law as personally financially ruinous as possible," Hutchison added.

If that was the plan, then open the files and name the names: who conceived it, who wrote it, who helped arm it, and who intends to cash in as Illinois turns its courthouses into weapons against federal officers for doing their jobs enforcing America's immigration laws. The NPA's individual FOIAs can be viewed here.

The National Police Association is a nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting for law enforcement through advocacy, education, and the courts. For more information, visit NationalPolice.org.

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SOURCE National Police Association