During a congressional hearing last year, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) explained: “Violent criminals have no place on our streets; if they are undocumented, we want them out of Illinois and out of our country.” And yet, as I explained last October, both the Land of Lincoln and Chicago (it’s largest city) have some of the most restrictive sanctuary laws in the country, meaning they refuse to assist ICE in taking custody of those very same “violent criminals”. If that sounds oxymoronic, welcome to the world of politics, where partisanship often allows no space for common sense.
'Judicial Warrants'
The hearing in question was held last June by the House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (of which I am an alumnus staffer), and captioned “A Hearing with Sanctuary State Governors”. Here is the full excerpt from that portion of the governor’s written testimony:
Violent criminals have no place on our streets; if they are undocumented, we want them out of Illinois and out of our country. When the federal government has a judge-signed warrant for a criminal’s arrest, we work to assist them, regardless of that criminal’s immigration status. [Emphasis added.]
Logically, the State of Illinois and its chief executive are assisted by an army of lawyers, and in fact the office of the state’s attorney general, Kwame Raoul (D) claims to have “approximately 450 attorneys who specialize in more than 40 areas of law”.
None of those divisions specialize in immigration per se, but Raoul, “a graduate of DePaul University [who] earned his law degree from Chicago-Kent College of Law”, seems like a pretty smart cookie and probably keeps a jarful of other smart cookies on his staff.
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