Todd Lyons, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, called on Illinois to honor immigration detainers in a letter to Democratic state Attorney General Kwame Raoul on Monday.
As the Trump administration continues its surge in immigration enforcement in the Chicago area through Operation Midway Blitz, it continues to clash with Gov. JB Pritzker‘s (D-IL) administration as Pritzker attempts to stiff-arm what he has called a federal “power grab.” The Department of Homeland Security said the state’s refusal to honor immigration detainers has led to the release of 1,768 illegal immigrants from criminal custody in the state since Jan. 20.
“Governor Pritzker and his fellow Illinois sanctuary politicians are releasing murderers, pedophiles, and kidnappers back into our neighborhoods and putting American lives at risk,” DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “We are calling on Governor Pritzker and his administration to stop this dangerous derangement and commit to honoring the ICE arrest detainers of the more than 4,000 criminal illegal aliens in Illinois’ custody.”
DHS said there are currently 4,015 illegal immigrants in custody in Illinois with an active immigration detainer. Raoul did not respond to Lyons’s last letter from September, in which the acting ICE director requested Raoul and the attorneys general of California and New York to confirm cooperation with ICE’s immigrant detainers, according to DHS.
Neither Raoul nor Pritzker’s office responded to the Washington Examiner‘s requests for comment.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ACCUSES ILLINOIS OFFICIALS OF INCITING ICE PROTESTS
Since DHS announced Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago and President Donald Trump authorized National Guard troops to be sent to the Windy City, tensions between the blue state and the Republican presidential administration have flared over immigration policy and the national guard. Illinois sued the Trump administration to block its deployment of the National Guard in October, and the deployment question has made its way to the Supreme Court’s docket.
“The state of Illinois is going to use every lever at our disposal to resist this power grab and get [DHS Secretary Kristi] Noem’s thugs the hell out of Chicago. I’m not afraid. I am not afraid, and I won’t back down,” Pritzker said at a press conference in October on the state’s lawsuit.
