President Donald Trump’s Justice Department is suing Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, arguing their Democratic-controlled layers of government are interfering with federal immigration enforcement as the White House pursues a mass deportation campaign.
The federal lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Chicago claims sanctuary policies that bar local authorities from cooperating with the deportation effort are “exacerbating” a crisis at the U.S. southern border.
Pritzker, Johnson and Preckwinkle have vowed to uphold the state and city’s sanctuary laws, meaning local authorities won’t assist federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement in tracking down immigrants without legal status.
The Justice Department claims Illinois leaders have been “minimally enforcing — and oftentimes affirmatively thwarting” federal investigations, resulting in “countless criminals being released into Chicago who should have been held for immigration removal from the United States.” They want a court order barring state and local protections for immigrants.
“This national crisis underscores the vital importance of “[e]nforcing our Nation’s immigration laws,’” the suit states. “This action seeks to put an end to one State’s efforts to impede the Federal Government from doing that.”
Immigrants without legal status have not accounted for a disproportionate number of crimes compared to the rest of the population, numerous studies have shown.
The federal government is arguing state law and ordinances at the county and city level “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.”
‘Illinois will defend our laws’
Pritzker said the state’s TRUST Act, the 2017 law which prohibits local police from assisting with immigration enforcement, “has always been compliant with federal law and still is today.”
“Unlike Donald Trump, Illinois follows the law,” Pritzker said in a statement. “Illinois will defend our laws that prioritize police resources for fighting crime while enabling state law enforcement to assist with arresting violent criminals. Instead of working with us to support law enforcement, the Trump Administration is making it more difficult to protect the public, just like they did when Trump pardoned the convicted January 6 violent criminals. We look forward to seeing them in court.”
A spokesperson for the city Law Department said they were reviewing the suit. During a news conference Tuesday, Johnson reiterated “local law enforcement will not double as federal agents.
“There is a clear separation there. That’s the only thing that this ordinance, essentially, lays out. So it’s not a matter of the police department not going after violent criminals,” Johnson said at that news conference. “While we’re talking about undocumented individuals, do you know how many illegal guns come through Chicago? That’s what the president of the United States of America can help me with.”
At a Loop news conference Thursday, Preckwinkle said, “we’ll defend ourselves and hope for success in the court system... We’re going to fight back. We will pursue every legal opportunity to defend the programs that we believe in and defend our values.”
The lawsuit also named Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling and Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart as defendants. CPD officials declined to comment. Dart’s office couldn’t be reached.
City Council reaction: '...what we are doing isn’t obstructing’
Trump, who has long used Chicago as a political piñata and denigrated the city as crime-infested and “embarrassing to us as a nation,” tried to withhold federal law enforcement funding from Chicago during his first term as president. That effort that was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
But Justice Department officials signaled soon after Trump’s inauguration last month that again they would go after state and local governments thought to be undermining federal immigration laws.
Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th), who chairs the City Council’s Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said it’s “not surprising” that Trump would file a lawsuit that essentially seeks to compel Chicago police officers to do what the sanctuary city ordinance prohibits — cooperate with Trump’s mass deportation.
“To have the Department of Justice do this tracks with how they want to disrupt and be chaotic. It’s something we all should have been anticipating — and some of us did,” Vasquez said. “Trump’s going to weaponize the federal government by any means that he can.”
“I don’t think this is the last of the focus we’re going to see on the city of Chicago,” Vasquez added. “But we are blue city and a blue state. Whether President Trump wants to weaponize, that isn’t going to change our resolve. Standing up for working families is the city we are and will remain.”
Vasquez said he believes the lawsuit is baseless and will accomplish nothing, other than generating headlines and scaring people.
“I believe that what we are doing isn’t obstructing anything because we’re not blocking anyone from doing anything,” Vasquez said. “The fact that we’re not interacting isn’t the same thing as blocking.”
Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th) branded the lawsuit a “federal overreach and a waste of federal government resources.”
“While Trump and his administration may disagree with our sanctuary city policies, we are protected by the 10th Amendment and, as a state and local government, have the ability to determine our own policies that are in the best interest of our communities,” Ramirez-Rosa said.
Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th) said the suit was an example of Trump trying “to run the country as a dictator. What we’re seeing is the ideology from the extreme right that is trying to be shoved down people’s throats. We have to stand up and fight on this.”
Ed Yohnka, communications director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, dismissed the suit as “little more than the continuation of the name-calling and threats that we saw when White House advisor Tom Homan visited Chicago in December.”
“The Constitution permits state and local government to determine local priorities without interference from the federal government. The President and his allies cannot ignore this reality in their zeal to carry out a cruel and troubling mass deportation program,” Yohnka said.
Calls to cooperate
It’s been 40 years since Mayor Harold Washington issued an executive order declaring Chicago a “sanctuary city,” meaning undocumented people can access city services and live without fear of police harassment or city cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
Last month, after a furious lobbying campaign by immigration rights advocates and their political champions, the City Council, without debate, voted 39-11 to table an attempt by two Hispanic alderpersons to restore so-called “carve-outs” to the citys’ Welcoming City ordinance.
The failed ordinance was led by Southwest Side colleagues Ray Lopez (15th) and Silvana Tabares (23rd), two of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s most outspoken critics. Those exceptions had been eliminated during former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration.
On Thursday, Lopez blamed what he called the “inflammatory and challenging rhetoric” from Johnson “and his radical allies” for the legal actions taken by the Trump administration.
“Chicago is experiencing the initial onslaught from the Trump Administration due to Johnson’s unwavering refusal to permit common-sense changes to our Welcoming City Ordinance,” Lopez said in a statement.
“Brandon Johnson’s continued political defiance will continue to threaten long-term undocumented residents as their numbers grow in collateral capture arrests. Brandon Johnson’s performance will upend the City of Chicago’s financial stability, giving federal agencies reason to attack the $3.5 billion in grants used across multiple departments serving all Chicagoans.”
Illinois Republicans called on Democrats who control all levers of power in Springfield to repeal the TRUST Act.
“By continuing to obstruct federal immigration authorities from apprehending dangerous criminals being harbored in Illinois illegally, Gov. Pritzker and Mayor Johnson are putting both law enforcement and Illinoisans at risk,” Illinois Senate Minority Leader John Curran, R-Downers Grove, said in a statement.
“Their continued refusal to put the safety of Illinois citizens before their own personal political agendas has now forced the federal government to intervene to keep Americans safe.”
Cook County Commissioner Sean Morrison — the county board’s sole GOP member — called the DOJ suit “a stark reminder of the serious consequences of non-cooperation.”
“By aligning our policies with federal efforts, we can ensure that those who break our laws are held accountable and removed from our communities,” Morrison said in a statement. “It is unfortunate that it has come to this point, but it also presents an opportunity for us to correct course and prioritize the safety of our citizens.”
READ THE LAWSUIT HERE:
Contributing: Tessa Weinberg and Chip Mitchell, WBEZ