On Thursday, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago, accusing them of interfering with federal immigration enforcement. This marks the latest escalation in the ongoing conflict between the Trump administration and Democrat-led cities and states over the administration’s mass deportation efforts.
The lawsuit filed in Illinois against Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and others, claimed that several state and local laws are “designed to and in fact interfere with and discriminate against the Federal Government’s enforcement of federal immigration law in violation of the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution.”
On his first day in office, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border as part of a series of actions aimed at reducing illegal immigration and enhancing border security. The lawsuit claims there is a national crisis of illegal immigrants entering the U.S. and presenting “significant threats to national security and public safety.” “Further exacerbating this national crisis, some of these aliens find safe havens from federal law enforcement detection in so-called Sanctuary Cities where they live and work among innocent Americans, who may later become their crime victims,” it says, per Fox News.
The lawsuit also highlighted that both Pritzker and Johnson have expressed a desire to remove violent illegal immigrants from the U.S. “Well, let me start by being clear that when we’re talking about violent criminals who’ve been convicted and who are undocumented, we don’t want them in our state. We want them out of the country. We hope they do get deported. And if that’s who they’re picking up, we’re all for it,” Pritzker said last month.
“There’s a federal law that clearly states if you are undocumented and you are convicted of a crime, you are subject to deportation. That’s the law. I fully expect the federal government to uphold that law,” Johnson added. “Being a welcoming city just simply states that our local police department will not behave as federal agents. There’s a clear separation of powers there.”
However, per Fox, the lawsuit argues that laws in the state and city are an intentional effort to “obstruct the Federal Government’s enforcement of federal immigration law and to impede consultation and communication between federal, state, and local law enforcement officials that is necessary for federal officials to carry out federal immigration law and keep Americans safe.”
“Upon information and belief, the conduct of officials in Chicago and Illinois minimally enforcing—and oftentimes affirmatively thwarting—federal immigration laws over a period of years has resulted in countless criminals being released into Chicago who should have been held for immigration removal from the United States,” it says.
The lawsuit references several laws, including the Illinois Way Forward Act, the TRUST Act, and the Chicago Welcoming City Ordinance, as measures that obstruct federal immigration enforcement. This legal action follows a day after Attorney General Pam Bondi signed a directive to limit funding to sanctuary cities. These jurisdictions typically restrict or prohibit state and local law enforcement from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers—requests to transfer illegal immigrants in custody to ICE.
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