Blue State Blues: The Toxic Combination of Illinois’ Sanctuary Status and the SAFE-T Act
23rd July 2025
It’s hard to believe he’s been walking freely for months. A woman overdosed in his home. He concealed her death and dumped her body in a bleach-filled trash can in his back yard – where it remained for more than two months. His alleged crimes were heinous. Abuse of a corpse. Concealing a death and obstruction of justice. Class 4 felonies.
Yet after Jose Luis Mendoza-Gonzalez was finally arrested, he couldn’t be held in jail. His alleged crimes didn’t qualify for pretrial detention under the SAFE-T Act, a law passed in 2021 that makes it more difficult to detain alleged criminals for certain crimes. The Act also made Illinois the first state in the country to ban cash bail altogether.
Incredibly, authorities had yet another opportunity to put Mendoza-Gonzalez behind bars. He’s an illegal immigrant and could have been handed over to federal authorities. But Illinois’ sanctuary status meant, again, he was allowed to walk free while awaiting trial.