EXCLUSIVE: The Department of Homeland Security lambasted Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and the state’s refusal to cooperate with ICE after an illegal immigrant convicted of child sexual abuse was released from jail despite calls for state officials to turn him over to federal authorities.
Both Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson have repeatedly criticized the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement posture, with the mayor comparing President Donald Trump’s America to Jefferson Davis’ Confederacy.
Johnson has accused Trump of “declar[ing] war on Chicago” and using DHS as a “private, militarized, occupying force,” while pledging to fight them in the streets, the legislature and the judiciary. The state operates under the Illinois TRUST Act, a law championed by Springfield Democrats and signed by former Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner that prohibits the use of state and local resources for most civil immigration enforcement purposes.
“Governor Pritzker continues to refuse to do his job to protect his citizens from illegal alien crime and instead chooses to smear our law enforcement,” Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis told Fox News Digital.
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“Where is the investigation into his own policies that allowed this pedophile to be released from jail and be loose in Illinois communities?” she added of the Hyatt Hotels heir and potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate.
Bis called on Pritzker to “end this insanity and stop releasing pedophiles into our communities.”
DHS told Fox News Digital exclusively that ICE officers went to Chicago and arrested Guatemalan national Erik Giovanni-Quiroa, who had been released from jail after his ICE detainer was ignored following a conviction for aggravated sexual abuse of a five-year-old child.
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Giovanni-Quiroa, who also had a 2011 firearm-battery conviction, was given a three-year sentence on the pedophilia charge but ICE instead encountered him on the streets.
Last week, ICE conducted a targeted vehicle stop and arrested Giovanni-Quiroa after his detainer was denied, forcing agents to locate him themselves.
Officials said Giovanni-Quiroa refused to stop and briefly fled before being placed in federal custody.
Bis said “sanctuary” politicians in Illinois and elsewhere continue to wrongly protect criminal illegal immigrants and allow them to reoffend and perpetrate additional crimes against Americans.
ICE previously called on Illinois law enforcement to begin honoring ICE detainers, as Director Todd Lyons wrote to Attorney General Kwame Raoul noting that DHS says more than 4,000 illegal immigrants are in state custody.
Giovanni-Quiroa illegally entered the U.S. under the second Bush administration and has been essentially a beneficiary of the aforementioned TRUST Act.
In the heat of “Operation: Midway Blitz” in June, Raoul published a memo reiterating key provisions of the law as a “refresher for Illinois law enforcement agencies.”
“It is important to note, however, that although the Illinois TRUST Act prevents the use of state and local resources for civil immigration enforcement purposes, it does not prevent law enforcement officers from taking action to maintain peace and ensure public safety within their jurisdiction,” Raoul wrote.
“Although some provisions of federal immigration statutes are criminal, deportation and removability are matters of civil law, not criminal law [and] whether an individual is lawfully present in the United States is a question of federal civil immigration law.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Raoul for comment on the current case, as well as Pritzker and Johnson.
When Rauner signed the TRUST Act in 2017, he said it would “continue Illinois’ history of welcoming immigrants and help law enforcement focus on stopping violent crime and protecting Illinois residents.”
In that statement, Rauner also cited a federal court decision from the Chicago-based Northern District of Illinois in which an Obama-appointed judge whom President Joe Biden later promoted to an appeals court found flaws in ICE’s detainer process.
Judge John Z. Lee said in his 2019 order in Jimenez-Moreno v. Napolitano that immigration detainer orders exceeded DHS’ statutory authority but he also acknowledged a Philadelphia federal court ruling that ICE detainer requests do not violate the Tenth Amendment as alleged.