Far-left Democrats in the Illinois General Assembly have passed a bill that will provide sanctuary to illegal aliens in courthouses and give them a right to sue the federal agents who arrest them.
Hate-Trump Governor J.B. Pritzker, who believes federal immigration and other agents are “Gestapo” stormtroopers and vows to prosecute them, will almost certainly sign the bill as soon as it hits his desk.
The federal Justice Department will likely sue to overturn the bill under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, an action that might go nowhere. A federal judge appointed by President Joe Biden dismissed the department’s lawsuit to overturn Chicago’s and Illinois’ sanctuary statutes.
The law will shield illegal-alien sex fiends and murderers from arrest and deportation.
The Bill
The law is an amendment attached to a bill, of all things, for a POW-MIA recognition day.
It includes several provisions to help illegals escape deportation, as Capitol News Illinois reported:
Under the bill, civil immigration arrests would be barred inside state courthouses and within a 1,000-foot buffer zone outside of the buildings. Though there had long been a de facto understanding that such were off-limits for immigration enforcement, they have increasingly been the site of apprehensions over the past year. Those who violate the act would face statutory damages of $10,000.
The bill also allows Illinois residents to sue immigration agents for violating their constitutional rights. They would be able to collect punitive damages, which can be increased if the agents are wearing a mask, concealing their identity, failing to wear a body camera or using a vehicle with a non-Illinois or obscured license plate.
In other words, legislators hope to endanger the lives of federal agents by forcing them to reveal their identity, which illegal-alien gangs and their supporters could use to harass, assault, or murder the agents or their families. Federal prosecutors have charged two men who solicited the murder of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, one of them in Chicago. As well, as The New American reported, citing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Mexican drug cartels have created a three-tiered bounty system on agents, with a $10,000 reward for murdering one.
Not surprisingly, one enthusiast for the bill is an immigrant Democratic legislator from Vietnam, Hoan Huynh. He called ICE’s behavior “un-American,” the website reported:
We cannot continue to allow gun-toting mercenaries, often without agency badges, to roam our communities and abduct our neighbors. Enough is enough. ICE conduct is unacceptable and un-American. If you love the Constitution of the United States, if you love America as much as you say you do, and if you believe in due process, then I urge you to vote yes on this bill.
Reaction
The bill is a reaction to Operation Midway Blitz, during which agents have so far arrested some 3,000 illegals, CBS News reported, citing federal data.
Leftist rioters have repeatedly attacked ICE and Border Patrol agents during the operation. Recently released video shows rioters hurling rocks and firing commercial-grade fireworks at the federal agents.
DHS attacked the far-left assembly for passing the hate-ICE bill.
“The Illinois General Assembly just passed the ridiculous HB 1312, a misguided attempt to obstruct law and order,” DHS wrote on X:
This bill undermines community safety by providing sanctuary to criminals at civic centers and other locations statewide.
Our brave law enforcement officers will not be slowed down by obstructionist legislation. The deportations will continue.
The Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police agreed, calling the measure “detrimental to local law enforcement.” Also opposing it is the Illinois Sheriffs’ Association.
GOP lawmakers, Capitol News Illinois reported, predicted the reaction from the Trump administration: another Supremacy Clause action. So also did the Senate president, Democrat Don Harmon.
“[H]e acknowledged that lawmakers were ‘playing with a stacked deck’ versus a federal government with the ‘upper hand’ due to the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution,” the website explained:
And there will be legal pushback.
“This law will be challenged — we know that it will,” Harmon said. “But it doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do.”
Amusingly, Governor Pritzker inadvertently admitted that the state is harboring illegal-alien criminals. The governor said that 60 percent of the illegals arrested in Illinois this year “have no criminal convictions of any kind.” If true, then 1,200 of those arrested in Chicago do have a criminal record.
Earlier Lawsuit Dismissed
Whether the federal government can prevail in such a lawsuit is unclear, given what happened to its suit against Chicago and Illinois, which sought to overturn unconstitutional sanctuary statutes.
Far-left federal Judge Lindsay Carole Jenkins, whom Biden appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, dismissed that lawsuit in July.
The individual defendants are dismissed because the United States lacks standing to sue them with respect to the Sanctuary Policies…. [T]he Federal Government may not compel the States to enact or administer a federal regulatory program.… [W]hile Congress has many enumerated powers, and may even overtake state law, it may not wield States as federal tools.
In September, the Justice Department filed a complaint to stop Illinois from providing in-state tuition to illegals, a violation of federal law. The department sued Oklahoma in August for the same reason.
