Edward York #

Introduction #

Edward York, a constituent outreach coordinator in U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s Belleville, Illinois office, was fired in November 2025 after Immigration and Customs Enforcement accused him of misrepresenting himself as an attorney and falsifying an official Department of Homeland Security form in an attempt to visit and secure the release of a detained restaurant owner. Duckworth notified ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons by letter — obtained by Capitol News Illinois — that York had been terminated, writing: “Upon reviewing the matter, I can confirm that neither I, nor my leadership team, was aware of, authorized or directed what your letter describes as the employee’s conduct.” The episode put a Senate Democrat’s office at the center of an ICE custody fight, fired a staffer over it, and left a 25-year-old Salvadoran father’s deportation case hanging on a forged form.

Background Information #

York worked in Duckworth’s Belleville office, the downstate base of the Illinois senator’s constituent operation. The man he tried to help, Ismael Ayuzo Sandoval, was a Staunton, Illinois restaurant owner detained by immigration agents near his daughter’s school on October 29, 2025. Hours after the detention, York went to the ICE office in St. Louis, where agents had taken Ayuzo — and where, according to Lyons’ account, he claimed to be Ayuzo’s attorney and demanded access to his “client.”

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation #

Allegations. The account of York’s conduct at the ICE field office comes from Acting Director Todd Lyons’ letter to Duckworth, an accusation by a federal agency; the underlying facts were not independently adjudicated, and York’s attorney declined to comment when the firing was reported.

According to Lyons’ letter, York claimed to be Ayuzo’s attorney and demanded that agents take him to see his client; he then asked for a G-28 form — the Notice of Entry of Appearance as an Attorney or Accredited Representative — and “accomplished it by falsifying an official Department of Homeland Security (DHS) form.” Ayuzo signed it, seeking help, and York then asked to see him; agents turned him away, directing him to the county jail in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, about 65 miles south of St. Louis. Believing York was the attorney, an immigration agent also shared information about Ayuzo’s case with him — including four prior deportations and a DUI conviction, details the letter said York could only have received under that mistaken premise. When Ayuzo’s actual family sought news of him that evening, they were told he had no attorney on record — the form had never been properly executed — leaving the family to spend days searching for him, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Public Reaction and Consequences #

Lyons’ letter to Duckworth demanded answers to eight written questions, including whether York acted under her direction and authorization — a framing that momentarily made the senator’s office the subject of a federal accountability inquiry. Duckworth’s response was swift and unsparing: the termination letter to ICE, and a public statement declaring “The employee in question is no longer employed by the Senator’s office.” Her office added a counterpunch: “But since ICE suddenly seems to care about accountability, the American people deserve to know if anyone there will be held accountable for lying to federal courts, illegally detaining Americans, or any of the countless other constitutional rights Trump’s ICE agents have been caught on video violating.” York’s attorney, Thomas Q. Keefe III, declined to comment.

Current Status #

York is a former Senate staffer, fired within roughly two weeks of the October 29 incident. No criminal charges against him had been reported by the outlets covering his firing; the ICE letter’s allegations stand as the agency’s account, untested in any public proceeding. Ayuzo Sandoval’s own case — the reason for the attempted intervention — continued through immigration proceedings, with his family’s account of the search for him reported by the Sun-Times as the human cost of the forged-form episode.

Impact on Their Career/Life #

York lost his Senate job over an episode that unfolded in a single afternoon, and the letter trail — ICE’s accusation, Duckworth’s termination notice, the eight questions — is now the public record of how his constituent-work career ended. The case became a data point in the fall 2025 fight over ICE detention tactics: even an intervention on a detainee’s behalf, launched from a senator’s own office, ended with the intervener fired and the detention itself unchallenged on the merits. For Duckworth, the firing drew the sting from a politically dangerous accusation; for York, the false G-28 form is the last line of his government service.