Skokie Woman Fabricated ICE Detention Story, Sheriff Says

Sundas “Sunny” Naqvi, 28, of Skokie fabricated her own detention by federal immigration agents, a Wisconsin sheriff told reporters Friday, dismantling a story that had drawn political support and national headlines for weeks.

Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt called a news conference to walk through what he described as an elaborate hoax. Naqvi had claimed she and five coworkers were taken by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at O’Hare Airport last month after returning from an overseas work trip. The story spread quickly through activist networks and elected officials eager to document immigration enforcement abuses under the Trump administration.

It wasn’t true. Not any of it.

“She was never held at Dodge County Jail,” Schmidt said at Friday’s news conference, laying out the findings methodically. According to Schmidt, Naqvi was never transferred in ICE custody from the Broadview detention facility, and she was never detained at O’Hare Airport. The whole chain of events she described, he said, was fabricated.

The Broadview facility, the official Chicago Immigration Court’s detention site, had been named specifically in screenshots that Naqvi’s supporters circulated to reporters last month. Those screenshots appeared to show she’d been taken first to Broadview and then transferred north to Dodge County. Schmidt addressed those documents directly Friday. He called them fake.

Schmidt said Naqvi had a documented history of lying to law enforcement, though he declined to detail those prior incidents publicly. He said he couldn’t bring criminal charges against her in Wisconsin because nothing she’d done fell under his jurisdiction. He referred the matter to the FBI and Illinois State Police.

Then he announced he’d filed a federal defamation lawsuit against Naqvi and against Cook County Commissioner Kevin Morrison, who had stood alongside Naqvi’s family in March to publicize her alleged detention. Schmidt’s suit seeks $1 million in damages.

Morrison had been among the louder political voices amplifying the story. He framed Naqvi’s case as evidence of federal overreach, exactly the kind of narrative that resonated in March 2025 as immigration enforcement dominated Chicago-area headlines. His office hadn’t issued a response by the time this story published.

The timing of Naqvi’s original claims wasn’t incidental. In the spring of 2025, with ICE operations under intense scrutiny across the Chicago suburbs, a story about a 28-year-old American citizen swept into federal custody and transported to a Wisconsin county jail without clear legal basis was precisely what advocacy groups had warned could happen. It drew fast and loud support. Officials repeated it. Reporters covered it.

Some journalists were skeptical early. ICE detention records are publicly searchable, and reporters who ran Naqvi’s name through the locator tool found nothing. That detail didn’t slow the story’s spread in the first days after her family went public.

The case fit a pattern that’s become familiar in the current political climate. A story that confirms what people already believe can move fast, and it’s harder to stop once political figures attach their names to it. Schmidt, for his part, didn’t seem interested in softening that point Friday.

The Chicago Sun-Times first reported on the defamation suit Friday morning, April 04, 2026, citing Schmidt’s referrals to federal and state authorities.

Schmidt said the investigation is ongoing. Whether federal prosecutors or Illinois State Police will bring charges against Naqvi remains an open question. What isn’t open, Schmidt said Friday, is whether the detention happened.

It didn’t.