Illinois
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.
CENTRALIA, Ill. – An investigation is underway after multiple people were shot Sunday in Centralia, Illinois, according to a report from WFCN News in southern Illinois.
FOX 2 has confirmed the Illinois State Police is investigating a shooting and taking over the investigation, but ISP could not confirm many further details as of 9 p.m. Sunday.
“The investigation is in its infancy and to protect the integrity of the investigation, no additional details will be released at this time,” ISP said in a statement to FOX 2.
According to WFCN News, the shooting happened around 5 p.m. near the 900 block of East Kell Street in Centralia. Multiple law enforcement agencies have since responded to scene and multiple victims are hospitalized, according to the report.
It’s unclear how many people may have been injured and what led up to the shooting.
Centralia, Illinois is about 70 miles, or just over an hour, east of St. Louis.
This is a developing story. FOX 2 will update as more information becomes available.
The National Weather Service has teams of storm surveryors in the field April 18 investigating several reports of severe storms and tornado touch downs across eastern Iowa, northwest Illinois and northeast Missouri.
According to the weather service’s website, windgusts of up to 60 to 70 mph along with teacup-sized hail and several tornadoes were reported April 17.
Many homes and outbuildings were damaged, trees were uprooted and power lines were downed in Lena, Illinois, where the most significant damage occurred, the site pointed out.
Very strong winds also were reported near Washington, Iowa, and Colmar, Illinois, where several outbuildings and grain bins were destroyed.
The weather service received reports of confirmed and possible tornadoes in the areas of Lena, Pecatonica, Shirland, Rockton, Roscoe and Capron.
The teams will be assessing damage this weekend into next week along with county emergency management teams to determine what types of storms occurred and their paths.
Dozens of power outages were reported, as well.
As of the afternoon of April 18, ComEd was reporting 85 active power outages across northern Illinois, down from 241 on April 17, and 6,751 customers affected, down from more than 18,000.
The bulk of those outages and the most customers impacted are concentrated in Jo Daviess and Stephenson counties.
Freeze Watch
from MON 12:00 AM CDT until MON 9:00 AM CDT, Lake County, Kankakee County, La Salle County, DuPage County, Northern Will County, DeKalb County, Southern Will County, Kendall County, Southern Cook County, Northern Cook County, Grundy County, Eastern Will County, Kane County, McHenry County, Lake County, Newton County, Jasper County, Porter County
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