(The Center Square) – A Republican state senator says migrant sanctuary policies enacted by Illinois Democrats are “getting people killed.”
Illinois law prohibits local and state law enforcement from communicating or assisting federal immigration authorities. And while Gov. J.B. Pritzker said violent criminal aliens should be deported, he warned that the Trump administration plans to go after others in the country illegally.
“We should stand up for them, that is the right thing to do, but [President Donald Trump] is trying to tear things down,” Pritzker said at an unrelated news conference in Chicago.
Pritzker said the more than a billion in tax dollars spent on the issue is meant to keep people safe.
State Sen. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, said the policies enacted by Democrats are “getting people killed.”
“It’s not just the dollars, the taxpayer nonsense they’ve caused, that’s bad enough. You’re literally putting people’s lives in jeopardy,” Rose told the Center Square.
He relayed a story from Urbana last weekend, where two women were killed in a crash and the driver fled. The suspect was later arrested near the Mexico border. Reportedly, he was in the country illegally.
“We have two young ladies dead in Champaign County and Gov. Pritzker still supports a sanctuary state? The mayor of Champaign and Urbana supports sanctuary cities? The mayor of Chicago supports sanctuary cities,” Rose said. “Whether it’s Laken Riley or these two poor young ladies in Urbana last weekend, the Democratic Party in this country and this state are getting people killed.”
Riley was a University of Georgia nursing student who was murdered in February 2024 by a Venezuelan national.
Pritzker stands by laws he enacted that he said protects illegal immigrants who are otherwise law abiding.
“Donald Trump and his administration, Tom Homan, people at the Department of Homeland Security, they’re the ones that are threatening people, again, who are law abiding, who are often the anchors of their communities,” Pritzker said.
Also Thursday, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul joined a statement with attorneys general from several other states, including New York and California, saying state and local law enforcement “cannot be commandeered for federal immigration enforcement.”
“While the federal government may use its own resources for federal immigration enforcement, the court ruled in Printz v. United States that the federal government cannot ‘impress into its service – and at no cost to itself – the police officers of the 50 States,’” the letter states. “This balance of power between the federal government and state governments is a touchstone of our American system of federalism.”
The attorneys general say Trump “has made troubling threats to weaponize the U.S. Department of Justice’s prosecutorial authority and resources to attack public servants acting in compliance with their state laws.”
“Right now, these vague threats are just that: empty words on paper,” the letter said. “But rest assured, our states will not hesitate to respond if these words become illegal actions.”