(The Center Square) – Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker accused U.S. House Republicans of blocking immigration reform and said that’s what led to President Joe Biden’s “imperfect” executive order that seeks to limit the amount of asylum requests at the U.S.-Mexico border.
At a White House news conference this week, Biden said, “I’ve come here to do what Republicans in Congress have failed to do, take the necessary steps to secure our border. … Today, I’m moving past Republican obstruction and using executive authorities available to me as president to do what I can on my own to address the border.”
More than 11 million foreign nationals have illegally crossed the border since Biden took office and reversed several security measures put in place by former President Donald Trump, The Center Square has reported.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbot said Biden could have implemented border security measures years ago or not halted policies from the Trump administration. Biden’s proposal will “do nothing to slow the record-breaking” illegal entries but instead “sidesteps actually enforcing the laws already enacted by Congress,” he said.
Biden’s proclamation implements restrictions only when “high levels of encounters at the Southern Border exceed our ability to deliver timely consequences.”
At an unrelated news conference in Chicago Wednesday, Pritzker called Trump an “adjudicated rapist” and blamed him for getting Republicans to oppose a federal bill that Republicans say would have codified the entry of thousands of migrants a day into the country.
“Even though there wasn’t comprehensive immigration reform in [the stalled congressional measure], there were some reforms. Everyone was compromising, if you listened to Republicans and Democrats back then,” Pritzker said. “Everyone felt it wasn’t a perfect bill but it would have made a difference. The Republican leader and convicted felon Donald Trump told the Republicans to walk away because he wants it as a political issue.”
The Center Square fact-checked Biden’s claims about the Senate bill and found many to be inaccurate. The measure also did not stall in the Republican-controlled U.S. House. It never passed in the Democrat-controlled Senate. The House did pass a measure that the Senate never picked up.
Pritzker said Trump put politics over the country.
“In my view we now have a proposal that is not a perfect solution, and again, we’d like Congress to take action but the Republican-controlled House is not willing to do so,” Pritzker said. “The President is using whatever tools he has to do what is necessary.”
The stalled federal bill said during any border shutdown, border agents at the official ports of entry must still process at least 1,400 migrants per day. The bill also would have allowed Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas the “sole and unreviewable discretion” over the amount of migrants processed. Mayorkas was impeached by the U.S. House for not enforcing immigration law. The impeachment was dismissed by the U.S. Senate.
Illinois state Rep. Adam Niemerg, R-Dieterich, said the people of Illinois are suffering from $1 billion in tax increases this fiscal year to offset the cost of taking care of illegal immigrants.
“Here you have the governor of Illinois condoning the continuing of illegal immigration, saying, ‘well this is a good executive order,’ but the order continues an illegal act, illegal immigration,” Niemerg said. “This is another example of Democrats manufacturing their own crisis, for their Democrat voter registration drive, and then coming in on the backend, six months to an election, saying, ‘hey we’re going to fix this through executive order.’ It isn’t even a fix, and furthermore if the president had the authority to do this, which it looks like he does, he could have done this years ago.”
Illinois’ newly signed budget includes $182 million for migrants in direct spending and nearly $700 million for migrant health care services.
Biden’s executive order isn’t perfect, Pritzker said.
“There are limits to what the president can do at the border. There are laws on the books that prevent him from doing a number of things that I am sure he’d like to do, so this [executive order] is what he can do. It’s imperfect and not what we need … ultimately this is the right thing to do now, but what we really need is something much more comprehensive,” said Pritzker.
Niemerg said Pritzker taking shots at Trump during a news conference was like a child lashing out for not getting their way. The only reason Pritzker is lashing out is because he knows the American people wouldn’t elect him for president because of his Marxist ideology, Niemerg said.
“If Illinoisans want the facts then get them from Trump, who knows what they are talking about,” said Niemerg. “The total cost that we are looking at is about $3 billion in the last couple of years [in Illinois for migrants]. The true cost has yet to be seen, but roughly it’s $3 billion and this year only you’re looking at a billion dollar tax increase to offset the billion dollars in expenses for illegals this year.”
Illinois state Rep. Adam Niemerg, R-Dieterich, talks with a fellow legislator on the House Floor
Trump, who was convicted in a hush money case out of New York last week, posted to his Truth Social website that Biden “has totally surrendered our Southern Border.”
“His weakness and extremism have resulted in a Border Invasion like we have never seen before,” Trump said. “Other countries have emptied out their prisons, insane asylums, and mental institutions, and sent us drug dealers, human traffickers, and terrorists. Millions of people have poured into our Country—and now, after nearly four years of his failed, weak leadership, Crooked Joe Biden is pretending to finally do something about the border—but in fact, it’s all for show because he knows we have a debate coming up in 3 weeks.”
