A judge found that a pair of Chicago landlords violated Illinois state law when they threatened to call federal immigration authorities on former tenants.
The national Latino legal and civil rights organization representing an immigrant couple who sued their former landlords in Chicago for threatening to call ICE on them said this week the tenants will be awarded more than $80,000 in damages, after a judge found the landlords violated an Illinois state law.
According to the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, better known as MALDEF, this is the first case to reach a judgment under the Illinois Immigrant Tenant Protection Act of 2019.
The law bans landlords from discriminating against or harassing a tenant based on their actual or perceived immigration status. It prohibits landlords from reporting or threatening to report a tenant to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for intimidation or retaliation purposes, and also bars landlords from evicting tenants solely because of their immigration status.
“Such unscrupulous conduct is appropriately unlawful under Illinois state law,” Thomas A. Saenz, MALDEF president and general counsel, said in a statement Monday.
On Feb. 19, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Catherine A. Schneider ordered landlords Marco Antonio Contreras and Denise Contreras to pay damages, attorneys’ fees and costs for violating the Immigrant Tenant Protection Act to former tenants Maria Maltos Escutia and Gabriel Valdez Garcia.
Maltos Escutia and Valdez Garcia, a couple who lived together, sued the Contreras under the Illinois Immigrant Tenant Protection Act in 2022. According to the complaint, “the Defendants wrongfully threatened to report Plaintiffs to ICE with the intent to harass, intimidate, and induce them to pay rent and surrender possession of the premises.”
Marco Antonio Contreras could not immediately be reached for comment and Denise Contreras could not be reached at a phone number listed for her.
In a Monday statement posted by MALDEF, Maltos Escutia and Valdez Garcia said, “We decided not to stay silent because our landlords threatened us with calling immigration, and we do not believe that anyone has a right to threaten us.”
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“No one should feel or act superior to others. We are all equals and deserve respect,” the statement reads. “Just because someone is your landlord does not mean that they get to do whatever they want to you.”
An ‘important victory’ for tenants
Illinois is one of three states in the U.S. that have laws protecting immigrant tenants’ rights.
California was the first state to pass an immigrant tenant law in 2017 and Colorado followed in 2021.
Saenz said the judge’s decision in Illinois “provides a measure of justice to a family facing a landlord willing to threaten to call federal immigration authorities in the belief that it would scare tenants.”
It also comes at a time when cities seen as safe havens for immigrants have been facing intense scrutiny as President Donald Trump ramps up his administration’s efforts to detain and deport immigrants across the nation.
Susana Sandoval Vargas, MALDEF’s midwest regional counsel and the attorney representing Maltos Escutia and Valdez Garcia, called the judgment “an important victory for all tenants in Illinois, who, like our clients, just want a safe place to call home.”
“This decision shows that those who choose to disregard these protections will face serious consequences,” Sandoval Vargas said in a statement. “Everyone has rights under the rule of law regardless of their actual or perceived immigration status.”
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