(The Center Square) – From July 2024 to February 2025, Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights has received over $63 million in Illinois taxpayer funds, according to the Illinois Comptroller vendor payment system.
ICIRR received nearly $4 million of taxpayer money this month for Illinois Welcoming Centers.
According to the Illinois Department of Human Services, the centers “eliminate systemic barriers that immigrants may have in approaching state services.”
State Rep. Adam Niemerg, R-Dieterich, suggested the federal Department of Government Efficiency come to the state of Illinois and uncover this “ridiculousness” and see how tax dollars are really being spent.
“The governor is going to do the Springfield two-step. He’s going to do this parlor trick today to say, ‘hey, I came up with some revenues to try to balance his budget,’ but we have … COVID monies [that] are gone, he spent over $3-6 billion on illegal immigration, has a $3.2 billion deficit, and I guarantee you, at 3 a.m. the last night of session, they’re going to be raising your taxes,” said Niemerg.
ICIRR has a hotline that is promoted on the Roger Baldwin Foundation of ACLU Illinois’ website. The foundation’s director of communications and public policy, Ed Yohnka, explained the hotline was posted because they want people to know where they can go if they see U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity.
“Or if they need information about getting legal representation for people who are detained by ICE,” said Yohnka.
According to ICIRR’s website, the hotline provides callers an option to either report ICE activity and/or receive support to locate someone in ICE custody.
Niemerg was recently appointed as the Republican spokesman of the Illinois House Immigration and Human Rights Committee.
“The civil liberties, civil rights are based on the concept of individual liberty under this republic as a citizen of this country, not as a citizen of another country,” said Niemerg.
On social media, Niemerg said the main reason for the $3.2 billion budget deficit is due to funding allocated for illegal immigration services.
“And you see that the DOJ has a lawsuit against the sanctuary status here in the state of Illinois, which I hope goes well, and the sanctuary city of Chicago. [Mayor] Brandon Johnson, is going to be testifying in Congress. But Gov. [J.B.] Pritzker still sits here and talks about how he’s bringing fiscal sanity to the state of Illinois, yet this budget is a $55 billion budget. It was $53 billion last fiscal … This is the biggest budget we’ve ever seen. Spending is out of control,” said Niemerg.
Pritzker delivered his State of the State and budget address on Wednesday, proposing a $55.2 billion spending plan without tax increases. Part of his speech was criticizing President Donald Trump’s policies the governor said are worrisome.
“I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next,” Pritzker said during his speech. “All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.”
From July of 2024 to February 2025, the Immigration Project based in Normal, Illinois,has received over half a million dollars in taxpayer dollars, according to the Illinois Comptroller vendor payment system.
The Immigration Project’s website says they help low-income immigrant families obtain legal services to “protect themselves from deportation.”
