He Raped a 5-Year-Old.
Pritzker Let Him Walk. ICE Had to Hunt Him Down.
Erik Giovanni-Quiroa — a Guatemalan national who illegally entered the United States during the Bush administration, was convicted of aggravated battery with a firearm in 2011, and was convicted in 2025 of aggravated sexual abuse of a 5-year-old child — finished his three-year Illinois sentence in early 2026. ICE had a detainer on him. Under Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) and the Illinois TRUST Act, the Illinois Department of Corrections refused it and released him into the community. On April 22, 2026, ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations had to track him down with a targeted vehicle stop. He fled. They caught him. DHS Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis: “Governor Pritzker must end this insanity and stop releasing pedophiles into our communities.” He is one of more than 1,768 criminal illegal aliens Illinois has released despite ICE detainers since January 20, 2025.
Two violent felony convictions in Illinois. Never lawfully present a single day.
Erik Giovanni-Quiroa, a Guatemalan national, illegally entered the United States during the second George W. Bush administration. He was never lawfully admitted, never granted asylum or any other status, and was removable on his face the moment he set foot in the country. Federal records describe him as a criminal illegal alien.
In 2011, Illinois courts convicted him of aggravated battery with a firearm. He was sentenced to 16 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections. Under federal immigration law, an aggravated felony firearm offense is a categorical removable offense — but Illinois did not transfer him to ICE custody when he completed his sentence.
In 2025, he was convicted of aggravated sexual abuse of a 5-year-old child and sentenced to three years in IDOC. ICE filed a detainer with the Illinois Department of Corrections asking the state to hold him for transfer to federal custody at release for removal proceedings. That detainer would be ignored.
The Illinois TRUST Act. Pritzker calls it civil rights. The 5-year-old’s family doesn’t.
Illinois operates under the TRUST Act (5 ILCS 805) — passed in 2017 by the Democratic legislature, signed by then-Gov. Bruce Rauner (R), and aggressively expanded under Gov. Pritzker beginning in 2019. The law prohibits state and local law enforcement from honoring civil ICE detainers absent a separate criminal warrant signed by a judge. A detainer alone is not enough.
In practice, the TRUST Act means that when a non-citizen — including a convicted child rapist — finishes a state sentence, Illinois releases him directly to the street rather than to federal custody. Pritzker signed a 2021 expansion (the Illinois Way Forward Act) further restricting cooperation. In 2024 he signed additional sanctuary protections.
In February 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Pritzker, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul (D), the City of Chicago, and Cook County under the Supremacy Clause, arguing that the TRUST Act and parallel ordinances obstructed federal immigration enforcement. In July 2025, U.S. District Judge Lindsay C. Jenkins dismissed the suit on Tenth Amendment grounds. The policy survived. The releases continued.
- →Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) — signed and defended the TRUST Act expansion; signed the Illinois Way Forward Act (2021); 2026 presidential ambitions widely reported
- →AG Kwame Raoul (D) — issued the legal opinion barring sheriffs from cooperating with ICE; refused to comply with Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons’ December 2025 detainer letter
- →Mayor Brandon Johnson (D-Chicago) — defends the Welcoming City ordinance; Trump posted on Truth Social that he “should be in jail” for endangering ICE officers
- →Illinois General Assembly — supermajority Democratic control of both chambers; passed the TRUST Act 2017, expansion 2021, additional sanctuary law 2024
IDOC opened the gate. ICE had to do the state’s job.
Per the DHS press release of May 1, 2026: ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations had lodged a detainer for Giovanni-Quiroa with the Illinois Department of Corrections. IDOC, applying the TRUST Act, did not honor it. He walked out of state custody at the end of his three-year sentence as a free man on Illinois streets — convicted of raping a five-year-old, with a prior firearm aggravated battery conviction, and removable on his face.
On April 22, 2026, ICE ERO officers conducted a targeted vehicle stop in Illinois to take him into federal custody. Per DHS: “Giovanni-Quiroa again endangered the public by refusing to stop when given lawful commands and attempting to flee in his vehicle.” He was apprehended, taken into ICE custody, and is being processed for removal to Guatemala.
“It is shameful that Governor Pritzker and his Illinois sanctuary politicians chose to RELEASE a pedophile from jail back into our communities. ICE law enforcement arrested this pedophile who sexually abused a 5-year-old child. Governor Pritzker must end this insanity and stop releasing pedophiles into our communities.”
DHS Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis — Statement to Fox News Digital, May 1, 2026
He’s not the exception. He’s number 1,769.
On December 8, 2025, DHS published an audit-style press release documenting Illinois’ release record under the TRUST Act since the start of the Trump administration. The numbers, publicly attributed to ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations:
Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons sent a formal letter to Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul (D) in December 2025 calling on the state to honor detainers on the more than 4,000 criminal illegal aliensin Illinois custody — including those convicted of murder, sexual offenses, and weapons crimes. Raoul’s office refused. Months later, ICE was running targeted vehicle stops to clean up the consequences.
Federal officials called it out. Pritzker said “come and get me.”
The fight has been public for months. In October 2025, Trump posted on Truth Social that Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson “should be in jail” for endangering federal ICE officers. Pritzker’s response, on camera and on X, was: “Come and get me.”The 5-year-old’s rapist walked free five months later under the same policy.
The administration’s position has been stated publicly and repeatedly on Trump’s Truth Social account (@realDonaldTrump). The three posts below are the running record of how the White House has framed Illinois sanctuary policy in the months leading up to the Giovanni-Quiroa arrest. Quotes are sourced from the published reporting cited in our Sources panel — primary Truth Social URLs are linked where publishers preserved them.
“Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers! Governor Pritzker also!”
“I love the smell of deportations in the morning… Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”
An AI-generated image of Pritzker depicted standing in front of a flame-engulfed Chicago surrounded by homeless encampments — a direct attack on the governor’s defense of sanctuary policy.
Bush to Biden to Trump. Two decades of choices that ended at a 5-year-old’s door.
The numbers say sanctuary. The 5-year-old says different.
A Guatemalan national who entered the United States illegally during the Bush administration was convicted in Illinois of an aggravated felony firearm offense in 2011 and aggravated sexual abuse of a 5-year-old child in 2025. ICE asked Illinois to transfer him at release for removal proceedings. Under the TRUST Act — signed by Pritzker’s Republican predecessor and aggressively expanded by Pritzker himself — Illinois refused. He walked out of prison. ICE had to chase him down with a vehicle stop. He tried to flee. He was caught.
This is policy, not accident. 1,768 criminal illegal aliens have been released by Illinois despite ICE detainers since the start of the Trump administration. 5 homicides. 141 assaults. 10 sexual predators.The Pritzker administration argues this is constitutional federalism. DHS argues it is a 5-year-old’s rapist walking out of state custody onto an Illinois street. Both can be true. Both are documented.