Democratic Alderman Raymond Lopez of Chicago criticized Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois Friday over his efforts to block efforts by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to arrest and deport illegal immigrants arrested for crimes.
ICE arrested and deported hundreds of illegal aliens charged with crimes, including terrorism, after President Donald Trump signed executive orders, including rescinding orders issued by then-President Joe Biden in 2021 reversing policies Trump put in place during his first term, Monday directing ramped-up enforcement. Lopez accused Pritzker of a “disconnect” from the needs of Chicago residents.
“You know, there’s an incredible disconnect what I hear from our governor, from our mayor, and individuals who live in the communities like the ones that I represent that have high immigration, high immigrant populations,” Lopez told “America Reports” co-host Sandra Smith. “We understand there’s a difference. We know there’s a difference between those individuals, the anchors that the governor referred to and those that choose to engage in dangerous criminal activity. They endanger the undocumented. They endanger the citizens. They endanger our own people who we should be concerned about, and I know after having met with Tom Homan, that that is exactly the type of individual that he and the Trump administration are zeroing in on. Those that choose to engage in criminal activity.”
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“It’s very ignorant for people to blanketly call all undocumented the same and treat them the same when you know that there are individuals who do not care about this country, do not care about their neighborhoods and are committing some of the most heinous dangerous acts in our city,” Lopez continued. “They need to be dealt with very specifically and swiftly and the Trump Administration is doing that in the first week in office.”
Smith played a clip of Pritzker condemning the ICE operations.
“How can you say that we’re overreacting somehow? They’re the ones that are threatening people, again, who are law abiding, who are often the anchors of their communities, who are paying taxes in this country. They’re the ones threatening people. We’re just standing up for people who live in our state and our city,” Pritzker said.
State and city officials have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to provide housing, clothes and food to more than 35,000 migrants who were transported to the Windy City, Fox News reported in February.
Protests against the housing of migrants broke out in Chicago, where black residents took legal action to prevent Chicago from housing migrants in a closed-down high school and two other locations on the south side of the city in 2023, according to ABC7Chicago.com.
Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago vowed not to cooperate with the Trump administration’s efforts to deport illegal immigrants who committed crimes in November.
Many illegal immigrants have made their way to cities like Chicago and New York City, some of whom have been bussed to those cities by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas. Abbott began busing migrants to so-called “sanctuary” cities in 2022 along with then-Republican Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona.
“We’ve seen many of my colleagues stand up and join my efforts to try to put some common sense back into our sanctuary city laws,” Lopez said. “We should not be giving sanctuary to sexual predators. We should not be helping those who want to use guns to kill people and have in fact killed people. There’s a common-sense approach by doing both. Going after the 2% dangerous while protecting the 98% that are not. Sadly, some in my party like my mayor who refuse to get with the program, but I think time will prove us right in the long run.”
Pritzker did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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