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Dem Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Sunday vowed to “stand in the way’’ of certain Trump deportation policies, including those targeting “law-abiding’’ illegal migrants.
“When we’re talking about violent criminals who’ve been convicted and who are undocumented, we don’t want them in our state,” Pritzker, 60, told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We want them out of the country.
“We hope they do get deported,” he said, referring to Trump’s policy of targeting illegal migrant criminals first under his mass deportation plan.
But “we also have a law in the books in Illinois that says that our local law enforcement will stand up for those law-abiding undocumented people in our state,” he said.
Technically, by definition, all migrants here illegally have broken the law.
Both the state of Illinois and its largest city, Chicago, have “sanctuary” rules on the books, which limit local authorities’ cooperation with the feds on deporting illegal migrants who haven’t committed violent crimes.
The Trump administration mounted an immigration enforcement blitz of “enhanced targeted operations” in Chicago on Sunday, according to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The Justice Department has put out a memo threatening to go after city and state officials who attempt to scuttle immigration enforcement efforts.
“That’s already the law,” Pritzker countered of the crackdown. “We have to follow federal law. We have to follow state law. Otherwise, we’re potentially subject to prosecution. Of course, we all know that. They’re just putting that out because they want to threaten everybody.”
Pritzker insisted that he won’t be intimidated by the Trump administration when it comes to immigration enforcement.
“We’re not going to help federal officials just drag them away because somebody pointed at them and said, ‘Oh, that person’s brown or that person’s not from here. Check it out. Maybe they’re undocumented,’ ” Pritzker stressed.
The Illinois governor also pointed to President Trump’s recent executive order aimed at ending “birthright citizenship” as an example of the type of policy to which his state will show resistance.
Birthright citzenship refers to the automatic awarding of citizenship to someone who is born in the US, even if their parents are here illegally.
“You heard them talk about something unconstitutional this year, the removal of birthright citizenship,” Pritzker said of Trump officials. “We’re going to stand in the way of an unconstitutional order. We will also stand in the way of them breaking the law in Illinois if they’re not following federal law.”
Immigration officials are conducting or planning to carry out deportation raids in more than two dozen cities across the US.
Trump has argued that he has a mandate to enact hardline immigration policies because of his victory in the 2024 election.
