Chicago is a “sanctuary city” in which law officers are forbidden from cooperating with federal agencies to enforce immigration laws. This is all the more reason why National Guard troops may be necessary to carry out the democratic will for illegal immigrants to be deported.
President Donald Trump won the election in November partly because of the Democrats’ utter failure to enforce immigration law. Under former President Joe Biden’s dereliction of duty, with an assist from sanctuary city jurisdictions, including Chicago, the United States was invaded by more than 5 million illegal immigrants.
Voters across the country were tired of the chaos, lawlessness, homelessness, crowded emergency rooms, and public school classrooms filled with children who could not speak English. So they voted for the candidate with a record of enforcing immigration law, and it is working.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed this week that only 8,400 illegal immigrants were arrested trying to cross the southern border in September, and none were released. When the Democrats were in power, 9,000 crossed every day, and most were released into the country to go wherever they wanted.
Citizens rightly want more than a secure border. They want those 5 million illegal immigrants expelled from the country. According to the latest Harvard polling, 78% of voters want illegal immigrants who commit crimes to be deported, and 56% want all illegal immigrants deported regardless of whether they committed other crimes.
Democrats disagree, with 69% of voters in support of deporting illegal immigrants who committed other crimes, but only 36% in support of deporting all of them. So, it’s understandable why Democratic strongholds, such as Chicago, oppose Trump’s deportation policies.
But the Democratic Party lost the presidential election. It does not get to set immigration policy.
“There is no reason a president should send military troops into a sovereign state without their [sic] knowledge, consent, or cooperation,” Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) said recently.
But, contrary to the governor’s assertion, Illinois is not a sovereign state. If Trump believes local law enforcement policies endanger federal agents and that a National Guard presence would help protect them, he has the authority to deploy them, whether Pritzker likes it or not.
Chicago’s sanctuary city policies certainly endanger the lives of federal law officers. Cars were used this week in a coordinated assault on Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, and Chicago police failed to come to their aid. Audio recordings of Chicago police dispatchers hearing federal agents call for help revealed them saying, “We’re not responding over there … We’re not sending anyone over to that location.”
Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said no stand-down order was given not to help federal agents enforcing immigration law. However, he did admit that there might have been a “miscommunication” and acknowledged that phone conversations may have taken place with dispatchers. Such “miscommunications” seem likely to continue while Chicago keeps its “sanctuary city” policies.
Federal law is clear that states have no sovereign right to set their own immigration policies. When former President Barack Obama refused to enforce immigration laws, former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed a state law that made it a crime for illegal immigrants to be in Arizona without registering with the federal government. The Supreme Court held that the policy violated the Constitution’s supremacy clause, which gives the federal government the highest authority over certain policy areas, including immigration.
The Biden administration invoked the same precedent when it dismantled razor wire and floating barriers that Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) erected to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into Texas. Biden sued Abbott to remove the barriers and make it easier for illegal immigrants to get into the U.S., and he won. Abbott was forced to remove the barriers, and Illegal immigrants swarmed in.
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY’S UNPRECEDENTED WEAPONIZATION OF DOJ
But there is a new president in office now who has demonstrated that new laws were not needed to solve the border crisis, but rather a leader with the will and competence to enforce existing ones. Pritzker and his Democratic constituents may dislike the fact that federal immigration laws are being enforced, and they may wish a Democrat still lived in the White House who would turn a blind eye to illegal immigrants roaming free in a land not their own. But, as Obama once lectured Republicans, elections have consequences.
If Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson want to get National Guard troops out of their city, the fastest way to do so is to work with federal law officers to send illegal immigrants back where they came from.