Gov. JB Pritzker on Thursday signed an executive order that establishes a commission to hold federal immigration agents accountable for aggressive tactics being used in the Chicago area during the White House’s ongoing deportation campaign.
It’s the latest effort by leaders in the Chicago area to try to document and rein in controversial raids stemming from the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz,” which began in September and has targeted several minority neighborhoods in Chicago and surrounding suburbs.
“We have witnessed countless acts of harassment and intimidation and brutality and abuse of power perpetrated against law-abiding civilians across our communities,” Pritzker said at a news conference Thursday. “None of this is about crime or safety. If it were, there would be coordination with local law enforcement and judicial warrants in any other country.
“Sending masked federal agents to intimidate its own law-abiding residents would be seen as a dangerous overreach and an abuse of power,” Pritzker added.
The governor likened the latest immigration enforcement to a “military-style assault on Chicago and our suburbs.”
The Illinois Accountability Commission will collect testimony, hold hearings and gather information from individuals, community members, subject matter experts, local officials, journalists, faith leaders and organizations — and issue a public report with findings and recommendations. Illinois residents can also detail conduct by federal agents at ilac.Illinois.gov.
Former U.S. District Chief Judge Rubén Castillo will chair the commission, and former judge and prosecutor Patricia Brown Holmes has been named vice chair. Other appointed members include Aurora Austriaco, commissioner of the Illinois Courts Commission; attorney and professor Susan Gzesh; Latino Policy Forum President and CEO Linda Xóchitl Tortolero; and Cindy Sam, a retired Chicago Police Department commander.
“We have a duty to ensure that the truth is preserved so the public can know what their elected and appointed officials have done,” Pritzker said. “It is imperative that none of the impropriety, brutality and harassment perpetrated upon our people goes unnoticed.
“There will come a time when people of good faith are empowered to uphold the law,” Pritzker added.
Illinois House Republican Leader Tony McCombie took aim at Pritzker’s new commission, calling it “just another taxpayer-funded political stunt.”
“He claims he wants immigration reform, but his own open-border policies and expanded Trust Act tell a different story,” McCombie said in a statement. “He talks about truth and accountability, yet under his watch, over 1,200 children have died in DCFS care and thousands more have been injured — where is that accountability?”
Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order this month prohibiting federal immigration agents from using city property to stage their raids. But residents in Little Village on Wednesday called on the city to enforce its ban, after spotting agents at a city-owned parking lot preparing for a raid.
The mayor’s office said Johnson’s Oct. 6 executive order can’t be enforced unless there are signs clearly posted before a raid carried out by ICE agents.
Trump launched the long-promised Chicago deportation campaign in September, which the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said would target “criminal illegal” immigrants without legal status who have sought refuge in Illinois and Chicago. But ICE agents carrying out raids have detained U.S. citizens and immigrants who lack legal status with no criminal records. DHS has selectively highlighted people picked up in the raids as “the worst of the worst,” including those with violent criminal histories.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement site at 1930 Beach Street in Broadview has become a focal point for recurring protests since President Donald Trump began the deportation campaign. The facility has become a de facto detention center, though it was never intended to be one.
Protesters, often while trying to block ICE vehicles from entering and leaving the facility, have been met with numerous rounds of rubber pellets and chemical agents that Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson previously said endanger nearby residents and first responders.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and the city of Chicago are awaiting a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court over Trump’s plan to deploy the National Guard in Illinois. If the Supreme Court sides with Illinois, National Guard deployment could be blocked here for the foreseeable future.