Controversial Illinois ‘sanctuary' law at center of Pritzker's testimony in Washington
WASHINGTON, D.C. - As Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker prepares to testify before a Congressional committee on Thursday morning, he'll face questions about the state's TRUST Act.
The controversial law limits the degree to which local police can cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.
The backstory
In 2017, Illinois enacted the TRUST Act under Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner.
The law bans local police from complying with federal requests to detain or arrest a person in the country illegally, unless ordered by a judge.
Local law enforcement also cannot stop, search, or arrest anyone based solely on their immigration or citizenship status.
In 2021, the state legislature passed laws expanding protections for immigrants in Illinois.
Mark Fleming of the National Immigrant Justice Center helped craft the bill and said the point is to keep immigration enforcement in the hands of federal agents.
"State and local governments are making a decision not to participate in civil immigration enforcement," Fleming said.
Fleming said that doesn't mean local law enforcement can't help out in some cases.
"We're not allowed to ask where you're from. They made that part of the act," he said.
The other side
DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick, who recently announced a run for governor as a Republican, said the Trust Act has forced police officers to choose between conflicting sets of state and federal laws.
"They've got the cops scared to death," Mendrick said. "Cops are worried that if they take action, they're gonna get sued."
Mendrick believes Illinois communities would be safer if police shared immigration status of criminal suspects right away, so ICE could apprehend them while in custody – as opposed to raiding homes, schools and businesses. But Fleming says the idea is to allow residents to come out of the shadows without fear of being deported by local police.
"Every study that has looked at it has uniformly found that TRUST Act doesn't diminish community safety, and that in areas like domestic violence laws like the TRUST Act enhance community safety," Fleming said.
But Mendrick says he believes the TRUST Act violates federal law and is calling for the Department of Justice to investigate.
"You can't shield them from detection," Mendrick said. "Giving them housing and putting 44 million into housing, sounds like shielding to me, sounds like harboring, sounds like participating."
Fleming says the courts have already spoken and ruled in favor of the state's implementation of the law.
"Frankly, this issue has been litigated over and over first in the first Trump administration and now in the second Trump administration," he said.
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