Dem Governor JB Pritzker Vows to ‘Do Everything I Can to Protect Our Undocumented Immigrants’

Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker vowed to protect illegal immigrants in his state when asked if he could “prevent” the incoming administration from building immigrant detention centers in Chicago.

“I am going to do everything that I can to protect our undocumented immigrants. They are residents of our state,” Pritzker told MSNBC host Joy Reid on Wednesday. “And I also, obviously, need to make sure that whatever they are doing in our state, the federal government, that it is actually within federal law or state law for them to do it.”

Pritzker, who previously issued a stark warning to President-elect Trump after his election victory, said that under Illinois law, immigrant migrant detention centers were prohibited in his state and local law enforcement were generally prohibited from participating in immigration enforcement.

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“But they are talking about rounding up people who are law-abiding undocumented immigrants in this country, many of whom are working, paying taxes, not getting any benefits from those taxes, I might add,” he said about Trump’s planned mass deportation operation.

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Another Democratic leader, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, has also vowed to do everything she could to protect illegal migrants in her state who could be deported under Trump’s plan.

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