The Department of Homeland Security rejected Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s claims about Immigration and Customs Enforcement efforts in his state, specifically in Chicago, categorizing his statements as “harmful lies.”
Citing an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union and a press conference Pritzker held on Monday, DHS issued a press release condemning the governor’s comments, claiming that he “repeatedly lied about federal law enforcement operations in Chicago.” He referred to ICE agents as “Noem’s thugs.”
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“The state of Illinois is going to use every lever at our disposal to resist this power grab and get Noem’s thugs the hell out of Chicago,” Pritzker said on Monday at a press conference announcing his lawsuit against the Trump administration for its order to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago. “I’m not afraid. I am not afraid and I won’t back down.”
DHS took umbrage with Pritzker’s words. The federal agency said it was “setting the record straight about Pritzker’s lies and defending the brave men and women of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection from his smears and slander.”
“Our message to JB Pritzker: Get out of your mansion and see Chicago,” said Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at DHS. “If J.B. Pritzker actually walked the streets of his own city, he would see domestic terrorists and violent rioters attacking police officers and the scourge of violent crime as a direct result of his own policies.”
Among Pritzker’s claims that DHS rebutted were: calling ICE’s efforts “an invasion,” saying that ICE was racial profiling, “picking up people who are brown and black and then checking their credentials,” and stating elderly people and children were “zip-tied” and detained for hours.
“For weeks now, Donald Trump, Kristi Noem, and Gregory Bovino have brought their militarized CBP and ICE agents to the streets of Chicago to cause violence and chaos in this city,” Pritzker claimed. He called the acts an “unconstitutional invasion by the federal government.”
DHS denied such a categorization, rebuking the classification of ICE’s activities as “unconstitutional” or an “invasion.” The agency explained that President Donald Trump has the constitutional power to “deploy troops, wherever they’re stationed, to defend federal facilities from attacks.”
“Whether it’s the ICE facility in Broadview or the courthouse in Portland, we will defend federal property wherever they are under siege,” DHS said in a release.
Pritzker also said that DHS was “raiding neighborhoods” and “picking up people who are brown and black” and asking questions afterward. The implication here is that ICE was rounding up non-white people in some sort of racial profiling activity without any cause or justification. DHS emphatically rejected such a claim, calling it “categorically false.”
“Allegations that DHS law enforcement officers engage in ‘racial profiling’ are disgusting, reckless, and categorically false,” DHS said. “ What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the U.S.— not their skin color, race, or ethnicity.”
“There are no ‘indiscriminate stops being made,’” noted the release. “The Supreme Court recently vindicated us on this question. DHS enforces federal immigration law without fear, favor, or prejudice.”
DHS also claimed its efforts were constitutional, with the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution granting ICE the power to make its arrests in illegal immigration enforcement crackdowns.