WASHINGTON — Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker defended Illinois’ sanctuary laws for immigrants in the U.S. without legal permission before a House committee Thursday and pointed at congressional Republicans and Democrats for using the issue to try to score political points rather than enacting comprehensive immigration reform.
“The vast majority of immigrants contribute to our communities, pay taxes and abide by the law. We should value their entrepreneurship, ingenuity and hard work. Both political parties are to blame for America’s broken immigration system,” the state’s two-term governor said in opening remarks submitted to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “I hope that this committee chooses (to) be part of the solution by pursuing bipartisan comprehensive federal immigration reform.”
In a hearing that lasted more than seven hours, Pritzker, appearing beside New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, said the U.S. “border should be secured. The asylum process should be reformed. Law-abiding, hardworking, tax-paying people who have been in this country for years should have a path to citizenship.”
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“We can have a secure border while also having real immigration pathways that allow people to come here, work, and support themselves on a reasonable timeline,” Pritzker said. “Our prosperity and our national security demand it.”
While immigration and sanctuary laws were the stated purposes of the hearing, Pritzker, Hochul and Walz, who was the Democrats’ unsuccessful 2024 vice presidential candidate, served mainly as stage props for committee Republicans and Democrats to attack each other on issues that occasionally went far beyond immigration, ranging from transgender rights and the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol to former Democratic President Joe Biden’s mental fitness.
Also, late in the afternoon, the hearing featured several tense exchanges of political bickering between Pritzker and Republican members of Congress, two of whom are from downstate Illinois.
Following the hearing, Pritzker blasted Republicans for showing no interest in comprehensive immigration reform and said they had more interest in politically challenging the Democratic governors.
“Look, the Republicans have a bare majority in the House of Representatives and they control the government. They should work with Democrats to get this reform done,” he said. “They should have listened to us about the challenges that we have in dealing with their failures but they did not. It was just attack after attack.”
Asked by reporters if the day was a waste, Pritzker said, “I think this entire Republican-controlled Congress is a waste,” adding that if there was any surprise, it’s “frankly just how many of the parade of horribles in the Republican Congress there are on this committee.”
Before Pritzker’s opening statement, U.S. Rep. James Comer, the Kentucky Republican who chairs the committee, accused the three governors of allowing “criminal illegal aliens to roam free in American communities.” He cited the January death of 20-year-old University of Illinois student Katherine Abraham in Urbana. She and another woman were killed when their car was struck by a drunken driver who had previously been a deported unauthorized immigrant. The driver was later captured by police while trying to flee to the southern border.
“This was a preventable crime,” Comer said of Abraham’s death as he said sanctuary laws made “Chicago a haven for drugs and crime” and called on Congress to defund states that “prioritize criminal illegal aliens over the American people.”
With her family attending the hearing, Abraham’s death was frequently brought up by Republicans to challenge Pritzker’s support for the state’s sanctuary law. The governor said he was sorry for the family’s loss.
Pritzker’s appearance before the panel had been highly anticipated because of his virulent critiques of President Donald Trump as well as his potential as a presidential candidate in 2028. And it comes against a backdrop of Trump’s increasingly aggressive and militarized actions to support immigration enforcement and deportation — and warnings that the president might make such moves in Chicago, which has seen heightened protests.
While Trump’s actions have focused on the deployment of 4,000 California National Guard members and 700 Marines to support Immigration and Customs Enforcement efforts and counterprotests in Los Angeles, Trump and his border czar Tom Homan have said the moves will not necessarily be contained to Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s state.
Newsom has filed suit against Trump’s use of troops without his consent, and the governor has seen his heightened visibility on the issue raise his political stock as a potential presidential aspirant as he accused the president of choosing “escalation,” “force” and “theatrics.”
Pritzker, while answering questions from committee members, said outbreaks of violence at protests in Los Angeles were not acceptable. But he criticized Trump’s militarization of immigration enforcement efforts as stoking emotions.
“We can all agree that violence of any kind, whomever it is directed at, is unacceptable. People must be held accountable to the law,” Pritzker said, before adding that it’s also “wrong to deploy the National Guard and active duty Marines into an American city over the objection of local law enforcement, just to inflame a situation and create a crisis.”
Trump’s camp contends it has the public’s support for the administration’s immigration crackdown, pitting it as a matter of public safety against Democrats siding with criminals and violent acts.
Pritzker responded to Republican criticisms that Illinois’ sanctuary policies have jeopardized safety by noting decreasing rates in homicides and gun violence as state and local law enforcement were focused on criminal activity instead of immigration enforcement.
“There is more we must do to uphold our commitment to public safety for all, and we will continue to work with federal and local partners in this effort. Violent criminals have no place on our streets; if they are undocumented, we want them out of Illinois and out of our country,” he said in his prepared remarks.
But Pritzker said that absent a judicially signed warrant for a criminal arrest, regardless of immigration status, state and local law enforcement will not assist federal immigration enforcement.
“What we will not do is participate in any violations of the law or abuses of power. We will uphold the law, and we will continue to prioritize precious local and state law enforcement resources for fighting crime,” he said.
The Republican House committee members are some of Trump’s most ardent — and far-right — allies in Congress, including nine members of the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus. The panel includes outspoken GOP Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Nancy Mace of South Carolina, along with Comer.
Under questioning from Boebert, Pritzker appeared irritated when she asked whether the destruction of government and private property like what was happening in Los Angeles could be considered “peaceful protest.”
“I find it hard to believe that you’re lecturing us about peaceful protests,” Pritzker responded. “Look at what happened Jan. 6th here at the Capitol, an attack on our democracy. That is an insurrection.”
“What we’re seeing in L.A. is an insurrection,” Boebert said.
“Then you don’t understand what an insurrection is,” Pritzker said. “It’s when people are trying to overturn an election here at the Capitol, at the Congress. You were here. They were attacking you.”
Pritzker also had a sharp back-and-forth with right-wing downstate Republican U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, who isn’t on the panel but joined for the day and accused Pritzker of backing a policy of “tying the hands of Illinois law enforcement” and of rolling out “the red carpet for illegal aliens to protect them all at the expense of working people in Illinois.”
“I’m not going to be lectured to by someone who extolls the virtues of Adolf Hitler,” the Jewish Illinois governor said of Miller, referring to comments Miller made on the day before the Jan. 6 riot when she told an audience of conservative women that “Hitler was right on one thing” for trying to indoctrinate the youth. She subsequently issued an apology.
After the hearing, Pritzker called Miller, of Hindsboro, a “terrible congresswoman” who “literally brings nothing home to the district” and “does not believe in doing things for her constituents.” Instead, he said, “All she does is attack, attack, attack.”
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U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood of Peoria, who also isn’t on the committee, criticized Pritzker, saying, “Instead of working with federal law enforcement to remove dangerous individuals from our streets in Chicago and across Illinois, you’re creating bureaucratic roadblocks and political cover.” Pritzker reiterated that it’s the federal government’s job to handle border security.
“Do your job. Do your job, congressman,” the governor said.
The Democratic committee members were also among the most progressive in the House caucus, including Jasmine Crockett of Texas and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. The only member of the Illinois delegation on the committee is Democratic U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Schaumburg, though progressive U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez of Chicago joined the panel Thursday to ask questions.
During his questioning of Pritzker, Krishnamoorthi contended Trump “provoked the current situation in California” to avoid discussing the potential for cuts in Medicaid in his “Big Beautiful Bill” that could leave more than 700,000 Illinois residents without health insurance.
“Yes,” responded Pritzker. “People will die.”
Ramirez greeted Pritzker by noting the “deeply unserious nature of this hearing” and asked the Illinois governor if Trump was following the “authoritarian playbook.”
“It is clear that they are targeting communities of people who don’t look like them and going after people that they think are opponents of theirs,” Pritzker said.
Ramirez also joined House Democrats on the committee in referencing the Trump administration’s actions in California and detailing news accounts and photos of U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, who on Thursday was forcibly removed and then temporarily detained at a news conference being held in California by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.
While Comer suggested Padilla acted improperly, several Democrats expressed shock and submitted news articles, photos and videos of what happened to Padilla to be formally included in the Oversight Committee record. Krishnamoorthi later said he will be calling for Noem to “immediately” testify before the committee.
Ramirez, who sits on the Homeland Security Committee, accused the Trump administration of “weaponizing the government and the military against U.S. citizens to exert control and suppress dissent” as she played a tape of Padilla’s detainment.
“We need to call it what it is. What we need here right now is Secretary Noem answering questions and oversight. Why the hell she thinks that what happened to the senator is acceptable,” Ramirez said.
Pritzker told committee members he was surprised by the actions against Padillia.
“I want to say to all of you, all of you on both sides, but particularly those on the Republican side, that I cannot believe the disrespect that was shown to a United States senator who was thrown down, handcuffed and not allowed to ask a question of our secretary of Homeland Security,” Pritzker said.
Because the Oversight Committee is a contentious forum with partisan firebrands competing for attention, the panel’s hearings occasionally devolved into side political skirmishes. That happened between Pritzker and Texas Republican Rep. Brandon Gill when Gill asked the governor, “Do you think biological men should be using women’s restrooms?”
“I’m not sure how this has to do with immigration,” Pritzker responded. Gill noted Pritzker used social media to urge people to use the other gender’s restroom as a protest to Trump rescinding protections for transgender youth.
“Did you ever consider that women don’t want you in their bathrooms?” Gill said as Pritzker at one point said to Gill, “So you’re admitting that this is just a political circus.”
The Texas congressman then accused Pritzker of supporting Hamas in Gaza through a state-funded appropriation to the Muslim Civic Coalition, because in protests it had called Israel’s attacks in Gaza a “genocide.”
“I know Republicans want to take away people’s right to free speech. We don’t in the state of Illinois,” Pritzker told him.
“You’ve got the right to free speech,” Gill responded. “You don’t have the right to tax dollars. And you gave them to them.”
Despite the criticism from several that the committee hearing was a political show, Comer defended the panel’s work.
“It’s not about theater,” Comer said. “It’s about trying to get a consensus on working with this administration to deport the criminal illegals.”
Later, Mace, the South Carolina Republican, portrayed the appearance of the three governors as politically motivated, though they were the ones called to testify by the House committee.
“Welcome to the unofficial 2028 Democrat presidential primary right here on stage at the Oversight Committee. Gov. Newsom must be seething the three of you beat him to the stage. But he’s a little busy right now defending illegals and defending antifa torching what is left of Los Angeles,” Mace said, referring to the far-left political protest group.
While Pritzker mainly aimed at Republicans, he did fault Democrats in the federal government for its failure to enact comprehensive immigration reform, including Biden’s lack of a formal border policy.
“The absence of leadership at the federal level by both Democrats and Republicans, and the deliberate actions of leaders in border states, created an untenable situation for Illinois and other states,” Pritzker said.
He also criticized Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, whose decision to send more than 35,000 migrants from his state’s border to Illinois starting in August 2022 to protest Biden’s federal border policies and sanctuary jurisdictions led to a migrant crisis primarily in Chicago.
“Illinois did not ask for this crisis, which was neither necessary nor inevitable, but we responded to it — with empathy and urgency,” Pritzker said, adding that it created “an unprecedented strain on Illinois’ resources.”
Illinois has also faced several lawsuits from Trump’s Justice Department. The DOJ has sued Illinois, Chicago and Cook County over its sanctuary polices, including the statewide TRUST Act, and filed a lawsuit last month contending a workplace privacy law enacted in the previous year aimed at protecting noncitizens impeded federal immigration enforcement efforts.
Pritzker has defended the TRUST Act, which he noted on Thursday was signed into law by his predecessor, Bruce Rauner, a Republican.
Vock is a freelance reporter based in Washington, D.C.