Pritzker Punches Back at Migrant Crisis Critics
Governor JB Pritzker speaks at a Belleville hospital Monday.
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Governor JB Pritzker is shooting back at critics of his handling of the Chicago migrant crisis.
Speaking at an unrelated event Monday in Peoria, Pritzker was asked about the TRUST Act, a 2017 law that prohibits local law enforcement in Illinois from participating in immigration enforcement. Republicans in the General Assembly have called for the law to be repealed.
Pritzker rejected the idea.
“Getting pulled over because they were speeding should not be a reason to now pull somebody out of their car, arrest them, and send them to ICE at the federal level and have them deported,” Pritzker said. “Oftentimes, people are living here, not just peacefully, but productively. Over time, people have applied for, and gotten, permanent residency or citizenship. I believe that’s a law that’s been good for Illinois.”
Pritzker defended the state’s role—and funding—of shelters and programs for asylum seekers that have been sent to Chicago. He called rhetoric about the migrant crisis “hysteria.”
“We have legal asylum seekers, they have papers, they’re here legally in this country while they wait for a hearing, and that we’re trying to provide those who don’t have a work authorization, we’re just trying to provide them with some basic humanitarian care,” Pritzker said.
The Governor rejected social media claims that busloads of migrants are being shipped from Chicago to other places in Illinois.
“That’s not happening. It hasn’t happened. It’s not going to happen,” Pritzker said.
While the state is spending hundreds of millions on a Medicaid-style health care programs for illegal or undocumented immigrants in the state, migrants are having health care tabs picked up by the federal government.
Pritzker said the state’s help for migrants has been for basic needs.
“Our goal here is to help people get to their hearings, to get determined whether they can actually have legal asylum and stay in the United States or be deported [at] that hearing,” Pritzker said. “It’s our job, I believe, to act in a humanitarian fashion. It’s what Illinois, I believe, stands for. It’s who we are as Illinoisans. And we will care for them.”
Pritzker called for work authorizations for migrants, increased border security, and comprehensive immigration reform during his comments.