Illinois officials have the constitutional authority to essentially thumb their nose at federal immigration agents and complicate federal efforts to locate and remove illegal immigrants, according to a new filing from Illinois' state attorney general.
The motion to dismiss was filed March 4 by Attorney General Kwame Raoul. It was lodged in response to a lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice, as the Trump administration seeks to block the state of Illinois, the city of Chicago and Cook County from enforcing their so-called "Sanctuary" laws and ordinances.
Those "Sanctuary" policies generally forbid local and state police from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement efforts.
"... Yes, Illinois's choice may 'frustrate' implementation of 'federal schemes,' like the current federal executive's (President Donald Trump) avowed commitment to conduct the largest mass deportation in American history," the attorney general's office wrote in its March 4 response.
"But this frustration is not obstacle preemption when the Tenth Amendment protects Illinois's sovereign right not to cooperate in the President's schemes."
The lawsuit seeks injunctions against Illinois, Cook County and Chicago and its officials, preventing them from continuing to enforce provisions of state law and local ordinances that prohibit officials from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement officers.
Those provisions also stop police and correctional agencies from honoring requests from immigration officials to hold illegal immigrants convicted of any crime, including violent crimes, until immigration officials can pick them up to remove them from Illinois and the country.
The laws and ordinances targeted by the lawsuit include the state's so-called Way Forward Act and TRUST Act, as well as Chicago's "Welcoming City" ordinance and its equivalent enacted by Cook County.
All of the measures were enacted in recent years by the Democrats who dominate Springfield and Chicago, with the stated goal of protecting illegal immigrants from deportation by directing state and local agencies to no longer cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
In the lawsuit, the Justice Department asserts state and local officials are using the laws to effectively thumb their noses at federal law enforcement - but only when federal agents are attempting to enforce immigration laws.
On all other federal law enforcement issue, the state and local authorities continue to cooperate with federal law enforcement agencies, the Justice Department said.
In the complaint, the Justice Department argued the refusal to cooperate amounts to the state and local governments using public resources to protect illegal immigrants from removal by making the job of federal immigration agents to locate and remove illegal immigrants slower and more difficult.
They further said Illinois' law and policies essentially result in Illinois allowing even violent criminals to remain on the streets in Chicago and elsewhere in the state, when they could otherwise be easily located and removed, if police were not prohibited from cooperating with federal immigration agents' detention requests.
In the complaint, the Justice Department asserted this refusal to cooperate with federal immigration agents amounts to a violation of the so-called Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which establishes federal law as the law of the land when it conflicts with state law.
Further, the Justice Department claimed the refusal to cooperate with immigration agents amounts to "discrimination" against the federal government and its priorities, which they say violates federal law forbidding states from selectively cooperating with federal law enforcement.
"For too long, leaders in Illinois and Chicago have abused their power by putting the comfort of illegal aliens over the safety and welfare of their own citizens," Bondi said in a statement that accompanied the filing of the lawsuit. "This ends today."
In response, however, Raoul, on behalf of the state and Gov. JB Pritzker, said the federal complaint is off base.
He argued past court decisions have repeatedly found that states have the right to ignore the federal government's immigration enforcement efforts, as they may please, and the federal government cannot "commandeer" state and local police and agencies to aid in their law enforcement activities.
Further, they argue the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution - which reserves powers to the states if they are not specifically delegated to the federal government - forbids the federal government from ever enacting any kind of law or orders to states to cooperate with federal immigration agents.
In the filing, Raoul notes the state laws are designed specifically to still require police to cooperate with federal immigration authorities if agents produce a criminal arrest warrant for a specific wanted illegal immigrant.
But he said the state has the constitutional authority to otherwise ignore all other requests or demands for assistance, whether or not it makes the job of enforcing immigration law more difficult.
"At most, the complaint describes ways in which the TRUST Act results in federal immigration agents exerting additional effort to detain and deport people," Raoul wrote in his filing.
"But expending federal effort to enforce federal law is an inevitable consequence of the anticommandeering rule; it is not a justification for invalidating state law."
The brief was signed by Christopher G. Wells, chief of the Illinois Attorney General's office's Public Interest Division.
Wells was joined in the filing by Public Interest Counsel Darren Kinkead, Deputy Solicitor General Alex Hemmer and Assistant Attorney General Alexandra Reed.
The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Lindsay C. Jenkins, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden.
The judge has not yet issued any decisions in the case.