Two days after President-elect Donald Trump’s “border czar” said the threatened mass deportations of undocumented immigrants would begin in Chicago, Gov. JB Pritzker again gave assurances that Illinois would protect all immigrants while also repeatedly saying he shared a desire to deport undocumented people convicted of violent crimes.
“Let me be clear up front: Violent criminals who are undocumented and convicted of violent crime should be deported. I do not want them in my state. I do not think they should be in the United States,” Pritzker said Wednesday at an unrelated event in Chicago.
The governor said he’d work to protect migrants seeking asylum, documented immigrants and undocumented people who had been living, working and paying taxes in the U.S. for many years.
Those remarks echoed his promises last month to shield his state from Trump administration policies he sees as damaging, declaring just after the election: “You come for my people, you come through me.”
On Monday, Tom Homan, Trump’s handpicked head of border issues, said at a Northwest Side Republican event that the mass deportations promised by the Trump administration will “start right here in Chicago,” according to news reports.
Asked Wednesday whether he’d work with Homan, Pritzker said he would work “just as I do every day, federal, state and local enforcement, on other matters.”
The governor said he would be “open to a dialogue” with Homan as part of the Trump administration but reiterated his belief that Homan doesn’t have the authority to carry out the types of mass deportations Trump has talked about.
Trump made concerns about immigration a key issue in his campaign, and while Homan’s position isn’t part of the president-elect’s Senate-confirmed cabinet, he figures to play major role in guiding border policy from the White House.
Pritzker criticized Homan for “making a political speech at a political township organization and attacking the people that you’re going to serve shortly.”
“When you take on the office of governor, you serve all the people while you’re serving in this position and I would expect that he would do the same in his position,” Pritzker said.
The governor’s remarks came at a press event where he announced an executive order intended to boost the state’s supply of affordable housing for working-class and middle-income households.
The order creates a new position within the governor’s office, the Illinois Director of Housing Solutions, who will be tasked with increasing the supply of homebuying and rental options for middle-class households, Pritzker said. No one has yet been named for that position, and the salary hasn’t been determined, he said.
Additionally, the state is bringing back a homebuying program that could offer Illinoisans down payment and/or closing cost assistance, as well as up to $40,000 in student loan relief , the governor said.