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This story was reported and produced by Injustice Watch, a nonprofit newsroom in Chicago that investigates issues of equity and justice in the court system. <\/em>Sign up here to get their weekly newsletter<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n From her room<\/span> on the third floor of the Sonesta Chicago O\u2019Hare Airport Rosemont hotel, Valentina Galvis could see flight crews and travelers coming and going. Families enjoyed summer dining on the outdoor patio. Friends snapped selfies commemorating their stays. Children fidgeted as they waited for shuttles to deliver them to the nearby airport.<\/p>\n But for Galvis and her seven-month-old son, the hotel was not a vacation \u2014 it was a jail. The phone had been removed from the room, and Galvis had no way to contact the outside world. Private guards contracted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement stood watch at all times. She had no idea when she and her son Naythan, who is a U.S. citizen, would ever get to leave.<\/p>\n Galvis and her son were detained at the Sonesta for five days in early June after they were apprehended at the Chicago Immigration Court by federal agents.<\/p>\n \u201cI was sad, confused, and often terrified,\u201d Galvis said. \u201cI wanted to call my husband, my attorney, or anyone at all to let them know where I was.\u201d<\/p>\n In screenshots taken by family members and reviewed by Injustice Watch and The Intercept, Galvis appeared on the ICE locator to be held over 700 miles away in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n Galvis\u2019s detention at the airport hotel came as federal immigration authorities have rounded up more than 100,000 immigrants nationwide in an effort to meet arrest targets set out by the Trump administration. The spike in immigration arrests has overwhelmed detention centers around the country: Immigrants have been packed into overcrowded holding cells<\/a>, forced to sleep on floors<\/a>, and subjected to \u201cunlivable\u201d conditions at a hastily built detention camp in the Florida Everglades<\/a>.<\/p>\n Though a hotel may seem preferable to these conditions, advocates said Galvis\u2019s detention raises concerns about what types of facilities are being turned into de facto detention centers and how many people are quietly held in Illinois.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Xanat Sobrevilla, who works with Organized Communities Against Deportations, says it\u2019s not the first time she\u2019s heard of an Illinois mother of an infant baby appearing to be in Washington, D.C. \u2014 which has no detention center.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know we can\u2019t trust the ICE detainee locator,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople get lost in this system.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., called the false location listing \u201cchilling\u201d and likened the secretive hotel detention to a \u201ckidnapping.\u201d<\/p>\n Illinois and Chicago have some of the nation\u2019s strongest laws aimed at protecting immigrants like Galvis by prohibiting state and local agencies from cooperating with ICE. But her and Naythan\u2019s detention at the Sonesta shows the limits of the state\u2019s efforts to block ICE detention<\/a>. The federal government can still use commercial facilities like hotel rooms to hold individuals and families in its custody.<\/p>\n \u201cNothing that the states or local governments can do will stop ICE from carrying out its operations,\u201d said Fred Tsao, senior policy counsel at Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.<\/p>\n Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who has backed legislation that defends immigrants in the state, declined to comment.<\/p>\n Ramirez said private companies are violating the spirit of sanctuary legislation \u2014 and she called for a state investigation into what happened with Galvis.<\/p>\n \u201cThis requires the [Illinois] attorney general to conduct an investigation and to consider what legal action must be taken in the state of Illinois\u201d against the security company that detained Galvis and Naythan as well as the hotel they were confined in, Ramirez said.<\/p>\n Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul\u2019s office did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n In a statement to Injustice Watch, Sonesta, one of the world\u2019s largest hotel chains, asserted it \u201chas no knowledge of any illegal detentions at any hotels in the Sonesta portfolio.\u201d<\/p>\n Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n Galvis doesn\u2019t remember the name of the company the civilian guards said they worked for. But she recognized a photo of JoAnna Granado, an employee for MVM Inc., a longtime ICE contractor with active contracts to transport children and families and a track record of confining unaccompanied migrant children in office buildings<\/a> as well as in hotels<\/a>. Granado confirmed to Injustice Watch and The Intercept that she transported Galvis and her son from the Sonesta O\u2019Hare. MVM did not respond to numerous requests for comment.<\/p>\n Since fiscal year 2020, MVM has entered into contracts worth more than $1.3 billion from ICE \u2014 the vast majority of it for the transportation of immigrant children and families.<\/p>\n In 2020, when an attorney for the Texas Civil Rights Project attempted to reach unaccompanied children being held in a McAllen hotel, he was physically turned away<\/a>. ICE acknowledged MVM was at the hotel in question. The Texas Civil Rights Project and the American Civil Liberties Union sued the Trump administration, and the government ultimately transferred the children<\/a> out of the hotel.<\/p>\n More recently, attorneys filed suit against MVM<\/a> last year for enforced disappearance, torture, and child abduction \u2014 among other claims \u2014 for its role during the first Trump administration\u2019s zero-tolerance policy that separated thousands of children from their parents<\/a> near the border. The company\u2019s effort to get the case dismissed failed<\/a>.<\/p>\n Calls to the Sonesta O\u2019Hare in June and July after Galvis\u2019s release confirmed that MVM had rooms there.<\/p>\n <\/p>\nICE Detention by Another Name<\/strong><\/h2>\n