Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem will visit Springfield this week, drawing a sarcastic response from Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office.
Noem is expected to hold a press conference during her visit Wednesday, with her office saying the availability will highlight Illinois’ “sanctuary” policies. Noem and other officials in President Donald Trump’s administration have argued such laws “shield illegal aliens responsible (for crimes) from facing consequences.”
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WATCH HEREGov. J.B. Pritzker’s office released its own itinerary of Noem’s visit to Springfield, mixing in critical comments about several controversies involving the secretary.
In 2024, Noem wrote about her decision to kill a dog that she called “untrainable and dangerous” in her memoir “No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong With Politics and How We Move America Forward.”
“It was not a pleasant job, but it had to be done,” she wrote as she described taking the dog to a gravel pit and shooting it, according to the BBC.
Pritzker’s office mentioned the controversy in a sarcastic note at the end of a press release.
“We would urge all pet owners in the region to make sure all of your beloved animals are under watchful protection while the secretary is in the region,” the note said.
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Pritzker’s office also said Noem is “not expected to address the parts of the Constitution that guarantee the right to due process,” and also emphasized that the Illinois TRUST Act empowers law enforcement to detain and turn over “violent criminals without documentation” while protecting the rights of the state’s residents.
Noem’s visit comes shortly after Pritzker voluntarily agreed to appear before a Congressional committee aimed at evaluating the impact of such “sanctuary” policies, which limit how local law enforcement can coordinate with federal immigration enforcement efforts.
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SIGN UP “The Illinois Trust Act – which was bipartisan and signed into law by a Republican – is fully compliant with federal law,” a Pritzker spokesperson said in a statement after he accepted the invitation to appear.
Still, Republicans, including Noem and Trump, have argued that the laws circumvent federal law and that Democratic lawmakers should be held accountable.
Rep. Mary Miller went a step further on Tuesday, calling on Illinois sheriffs to “defy…state sanctuary laws,” and to cooperate with ICE to deport individuals in the country without legal status.
“I call on every local sheriff in Illinois to defy these dangerous directives, cooperate with ICE, and support President Trump’s deportation efforts,” she said in an interview with Fox News. “We must act now before one more innocent American life is lost or harmed.”
According to guidance issued by Illinois’ Attorney General, local law enforcement is also prohibited from transferring individuals into the custody of immigration agents or coordinating arrests in public facilities, with the exception of cases in which agents have federal criminal warrants.
There is legal debate over the issue of “sanctuary city” policies, though according to the American Immigration Council the Supreme Court has said immigration enforcement is “the sole duty of the federal government,” and that the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution prevents the government from “compelling” local law enforcement from participating in immigration enforcement.
