A Chicago landlord has been instructed to pay more than $80,000 to a tenant couple after he threatened to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement on them.

Marco Antonio Contreras and his wife, Denise Contreras, were the first people to be charged under the 2019 Immigrant Tenant Protection Act. The law forbids landlords from evicting tenants solely because of their immigration status or otherwise threatening to report tenants’ immigration status to threaten or retaliate against them.

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The case was filed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund on behalf of the tenants.

“Everyone has rights under the rule of law regardless of their actual or perceived immigration status. In Illinois, landlords are prohibited from wielding the threat of immigration enforcement as a weapon against their tenants,” said MALDEF Midwest regional counsel Susana Sandoval Vargas. “This decision shows that those who choose to disregard these protections will face serious consequences. This is an important victory for all tenants in Illinois, who, like our clients, just want a safe place to call home.”

The couple praised the ruling in a statement.

“We decided not to stay silent because our landlords threatened us with calling immigration, and we do not believe that anyone has a right to threaten us,” the couple said in the statement. “No one should feel or act superior to others. We are all equals and deserve respect. Just because someone is your landlord does not mean that they get to do whatever they want to you.”

Illinois was the second state to sign an immigration tenant law in 2019, the first being California in 2017.

While this case was the first in which a conclusion was reached, another tenant filed a lawsuit under the tenant law in September 2021, but the case is still being deliberated.

In the case of the Contreras couple, the tenants filed the lawsuit after the landlords threatened to report them to ICE if they didn’t pay the desired rent by a certain time.

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Vargas told the Chicago Tribune that she hasn’t noticed an uptick in cases, but she suspects most people aren’t aware of the law.

The Immigrant Tenant Protection Act is one of many laws used by Chicago and other Democratic-controlled cities to protect illegal immigrants, tactics that have come under criticism from Republicans. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson testified in front of the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday to defend Chicago’s sanctuary city status.