A day after President Donald Trump directed federal immigration officials to prioritize deportations from Democratic-run cities, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker hammered the idea as “ill-conceived.”
Pritzker, who spoke out against Trump’s immigration policies during a Thursday hearing on Capitol Hill, said he was aware of the new order, which had been announced by Trump in a TruthSocial post on Sunday night.
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WATCH HEREHe said that ICE’s actions have been targeting the wrong individuals, and that he’s aware that more agents will be arriving in the city.
“We do know ICE is coming once again in force to cities across the country, so we expect to see them in Chicago. I don’t know exactly how big the force will be, but I do know he has used other law enforcement along with ICE to carry out his ill-conceived mission to go after people who frankly are paying taxes and they’re law-abiding and they’ve been here for many, many years,” he said.
Despite claims by the Trump administration, enforcement operations have not been focused on those with criminal records. According to data obtained by NBC News, of the more than 51,000 migrants currently in ICE detention, less than 30% had criminal convictions on their records. Roughly half of the individuals deported by the U.S. in the month of February had no criminal charges or convictions, and more than half of individuals currently detained in the U.S. have not been charged or convicted with a crime.
Being in the United States without legal status is a civil infraction, not a criminal one, according to the American Immigration Council.
“Those are the wrong people to be going after,” Pritzker said of detaining those without criminal charges or convictions. “We ought to go after the violent criminals. People who get convicted of violent crimes who are undocumented should be thrown out of this country, and that’s not what they’re doing.”
Trump has been emphatic about stepping up arrest numbers in recent weeks, with adviser Stephen Miller pushing for up to one million arrests per year by federal immigration authorities. As part of that effort, Trump announced a new plan to focus enforcement efforts on large cities, mostly run by Democrats, on Truth Social, calling on ICE officials to “do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest mass deportation program in history.”
Trump said that “millions upon millions of illegal aliens reside” in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, and claimed without evidence that Democrats use those residence to “expand their voter base and cheat in elections.”
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SIGN UP According to estimates from the Migration Policy Institute, there are an estimated 400,000 undocumented immigrants living in Illinois, with approximately 70% having lived in the state for a decade or more.
While some municipalities allow non-citizens to vote in local elections, non-citizens are not permitted to vote in state and federal elections under U.S. law, according to USA.gov.
Sources told NBC News last week that ICE would utilize “elite special response teams,” otherwise known as SRTs, in multiple cities, including Chicago.
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According to ICE, there are eight such SRTs deployed nationwide, trained to “serve high-risk warrants under hazardous conditions, escort dangerous criminal aliens who have been ordered deported, and assist local law enforcement agents during critical incidents.”
The units use long guns, tactical vests and other technology in their operations, according to ICE.
It is unclear if those enforcement operations have begun in Chicago, though SRTs were observed in Los Angeles, sparking days of protests and leading to Trump calling out the National Guard and mobilizing hundreds of U.S. Marines to assist law enforcement.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom sued the Trump administration, saying that he had exceeded his authority in mobilizing the National Guard for law enforcement purposes, doing so without the governor’s request.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul filed an amicus brief in support of Newsom’s legal action.
