WASHINGTON — Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker defended Illinois’ sanctuary laws for undocumented immigrants before a House committee Thursday and pointed at congressional Republicans and Democrats for using the issue to try to score political points rather than enacting comprehensive immigration reform.
“The vast majority of immigrants contribute to our communities, pay taxes and abide by the law. We should value their entrepreneurship, ingenuity and hard work. Both political parties are to blame for America’s broken immigration system. I hope that this committee chooses (to) be part of the solution by pursuing bipartisan comprehensive federal immigration reform,” the state’s two-term governor said in remarks submitted to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
“Our border should be secured. The asylum process should be reformed. Law-abiding, hardworking, tax-paying people who have been in this country for years should have a path to citizenship,” he said. “We can have a secure border while also having real immigration pathways that allow people to come here, work, and support themselves on a reasonable timeline. Our prosperity and our national security demand it.”
Before Pritzker’s opening statement, U.S. Rep. James Comer, the committee’s chair, accused Pritzker, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, the two other Democratic governors testifying, of allowing “criminal illegal aliens to roam free in American communities” as he sat in front of posters of undocumented immigrants charged with violent crimes.
He cited the January death of a 20-year-old University of Illinois student, Katie Abraham, by a drunken driver who was a previously deported undocumented immigrant and who tried to flee to the southern border afterward but was captured by police.
“This was a preventable crime,” Comer said of Abraham’s death as he also accused the sanctuary laws for making “Chicago a haven for drugs and crime.” He called on Congress to defund states that “prioritize criminal illegal aliens over the American people.”
But the committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, attacked the agressive immigration enforcement tactics of the Trump administration as “Ghestapo like” and said his father, a World War II veteran, would be proud that “I’m fighting today’s Nazis.”
Pritzker’s appearance before the panel had been highly anticipated due to his virulent critiques of President Donald Trump as well as his potential as a presidential candidate in 2028. And it comes against a backdrop of Trump’s increasingly aggressive and militarized actions to support immigration enforcement and deportation — and warnings that the president might make such moves in Chicago, which has seen heightened protests.
While Trump’s actions have focused on the deployment of 4,000 California National Guard members and 700 Marines to support Immigration and Customs Enforcement efforts and counter protests in Los Angeles, Trump and ICE Director Tom Homan have said the moves will not necessarily be contained to Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s state.
Newsom has filed suit against Trump’s use of troops without his consent, and the governor has seen his heightened visibility on the issue raise his political stock as a potential presidential aspirant as he accused the president of choosing “escalation,” “force” and “theatrics.”
“When Donald Trump sought blanket authority to commandeer the National Guard, he made that order apply to every state in this nation,” Newsom said Tuesday in a prime-time address.
“This is about all of us. This is about you. California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next. Democracy is next.”
Pritzker, during his appearance before the committee, said outbreaks of violence in protests in Los Angeles were not acceptable. But he criticized Trump’s militarization of immigration enforcement efforts as stoking emotions.
“We can all agree that violence of any kind, whomever it is directed at, is unacceptable. People must be held accountable to the law,” Pritzker said.
But, he also said, “It is wrong to deploy the National Guard and active duty Marines into an American city over the objection of law enforcement just to inflame a situation and create a crisis,” he said.
Trump’s camp contends it has the public’s support for the administration’s immigration crackdown, pitting it as a matter of public safety against Democrats siding with criminals and violent acts. Pritzker has sought to navigate against the GOP’s positioning by saying immigration enforcement should focus on removing criminals and that the president’s moves foment violence.
Appearing with Walz, the Democrats’ unsuccessful 2024 vice presidential candidate, and Hochul, Pritzker responded to Republican criticisms that Illinois’ sanctuary policies have jeopardized safety by noting decreasing rates for homicides and gun violence as state and local law enforcement were focused on criminal activity instead of immigration enforcement.
“There is more we must do to uphold our commitment to public safety for all, and we will continue to work with federal and local partners in this effort. Violent criminals have no place on our streets; if they are undocumented, we want them out of Illinois and out of our country,” he said in his prepared remarks.
But Pritzker said that absent a judicially signed warrant for a criminal arrest, regardless of immigration status, state and local law enforcement will not assist federal immigration enforcement.
“What we will not do is participate in any violations of the law or abuses of power. We will uphold the law, and we will continue to prioritize precious local and state law enforcement resources for fighting crime,” he said in the prepared remarks.
The House committee features some of Trump’s most ardent — and far-right — allies in Congress, including nine members of the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus. The panel includes outspoken GOP Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Nancy Mace of South Carolina, along with Comer of Kentucky.
It also features some of the most progressive members of the Democratic House caucus, including Eleanor Holmes Norton, the delegate from Washington, D.C., and Reps. Kweisi Mfume of Maryland, Jasmine Crockett of Texas and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. The only member of the Illinois delegation on the committee is Democratic U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Schaumburg.
Pritzker used much of his opening statement to criticize the federal government for its failure to enact comprehensive immigration reform, including former President Joe Biden’s lack of a formal border policy, as well as years of inaction in Congress.
He also cited Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to send more than 35,000 migrants from his state’s border to Illinois starting in August 2022 to protest Biden’s federal border policies and sanctuary jurisdictions.
“The absence of leadership at the federal level by both Democrats and Republicans, and the deliberate actions of leaders in border states, created an untenable situation for Illinois and other states,” Pritzker said.
“Illinois did not ask for this crisis, which was neither necessary nor inevitable, but we responded to it — with empathy and urgency,” Pritzker said, adding that it created “an unprecedented strain on Illinois’ resources.”
Illinois Republicans, at a severe political disadvantage in a Democratic-controlled state, had been using Pritzker’s committee appearance for fundraising, contending “the man who opened Illinois to illegal migrants with blank checks and no accountability will now have to explain himself under oath.”
A Feb. 26 state audit found that $1.6 billion in state funds were spent on healthcare programs for immigrant seniors and adults since 2020. Ballooning costs forced Pritzker to end one program for immigrant adults while continuing with a program that covers immigrant seniors.
The recently approved state budget also included a $1.3 million payment to a contractor hired to build a migrant housing shelter, only to have the project shelved over environmental concerns. The payment was authorized despite assurances from Pritzker that state taxpayers would not end up footing the bill for a migrant tent encampment that was never built.
On Feb. 6, Trump’s Justice Department filed suit against Illinois, Chicago and Cook County over its sanctuary polices, including the statewide TRUST Act.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago, argues that the state and local sanctuary 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.”
Another suit filed by the Justice Department last month contends a workplace privacy law enacted in the previous year aimed at protecting non-citizens impeded federal immigration enforcement efforts.
Pritzker has defended the TRUST Act, which was signed into law by his Republican predecessor, Bruce Rauner, in 2017, and other immigration protection efforts as constitutional.
Vock is a freelance reporter based in Washington, D.C.