DOJ sues state officials over laws protecting immigrants at courthouses
U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino, center, looks on after federal immigration enforcement agents detained a person outside a Mobil gas station in Evanston, Illinois, on Dec. 17. (Photo by Ashlee Rezin/The Chicago Sun-Times via the Associated Press)
The Department of Justice is suing Illinois' Democratic governor and attorney general, claiming that new state laws prohibiting detention of immigrants at courthouses and other key locations are unconstitutional and “threaten the safety of federal officers,” according to the Associated Press.
The Justice Department argues that Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul violated the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause, which dictates that federal law is supreme.
Raul’s office said it was reviewing the lawsuit, and Pritzker’s office responded that while the governor does not oppose deportation of undocumented immigrants convicted of serious crimes, “The Trump administration’s masked agents are not targeting the ‘worst of the worst’—they are harassing and detaining law-abiding U.S. citizens and Black and brown people at daycares, hospitals and courthouses,” spokesperson Jillian Kaehler told the AP.
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