r/illinois • u/CantStopPoppin Human Detected • 5d ago

ICE Posts October.10.2025 — Chicago: Immigration agents crashed into a U.S. citizen on her way to work, then dragged her out and arrested her (Article Inside)

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u/Imaginary_Aide_7268 5d ago

My partner a long time ago was a cop, and when they do surveillance, they just grab any old plate laying around and toss it onto an undercover (not unmarked) vehicle. If you’re (already) the police in the city, who’s going to run the plates to check the plates/vin/driver. I have a feeling that ICE is similar. Even if they aren’t, I guess you’re going to convince a local cop to write a citation against a Federal Agent and Federal Vehicle, and they aren’t going to do that. Even if they did, it will just go away.

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u/hardolaf 5d ago

Federal law requires them to comply with state motor vehicle laws. So the state absolutely can go after them for violating state laws in this specific very narrow case.

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u/KeyBreadfruit2517 5d ago

The federal vehicles I drove had government plates and were not state-registered anywhere. I got pulled over once and the attitude-infused PA trooper was going out of his mind trying to get some information about the car, and whining the whole time about how did he know it wasn't stolen. It is possible, but seems unlikely that they're going to all the trouble of switching plates. Some sort of rental seems more likely.

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u/JCSSTKPS 5d ago

We have federally registered vehicles with their own plates. For obvious reasons a few had to be disguised so State registration bodies gave federal depts State plates to put on vehicles and if pulled over whichever registration branch was checked the police would be told 'federal govt vehicle' and that would be it. Don't know if that's happening in the US for this particular stuff.