Pritzker Comments On Possible Prosecutions
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker has thrown down a gauntlet that may have serious constitutional implications — not for illegal immigrants, but for the very federal agents tasked with enforcing U.S. law. In a startling interview with FOX 32 Chicago, Pritzker floated the idea of prosecuting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents for carrying out immigration enforcement in Illinois — a state that has declared itself a so-called “sanctuary” from federal immigration laws.
Pritzker’s comments were not off-the-cuff. He suggested that his administration is “looking at” criminal charges and actively consulting with Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and local state’s attorneys to determine if ICE agents could be prosecuted for doing their jobs. In his words, “The tables will turn one day… they may get prosecuted after the Trump administration because the statute of limitations would not have run out.”
That’s not policy nuance. That’s a threat — one aimed squarely at the institutions of federal authority, from within a state government.
And it raises a profound question: Can a state criminally prosecute federal officers for enforcing federal law?
The answer, according to precedent, is no. The Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution protects federal officers acting within the scope of their duties from being prosecuted under state law. This has been reaffirmed multiple times by the Supreme Court, including in In re Neagle (1890) and Tennessee v. Davis (1879). Even the controversial Arizona immigration law, SB 1070, was struck down in part because states cannot override federal immigration enforcement. If those were the rules under a Republican-led state, they hold equally under Democrat-led ones.
But this isn’t just about legal overreach — it’s about the tone Pritzker is setting. In painting ICE agents as criminals and the president as an authoritarian, he’s playing to the most radical corners of his party, where immigration enforcement is treated as an act of aggression rather than an exercise of sovereignty. It’s a bold escalation, particularly when paired with rhetoric that frames federal enforcement as “mayhem” — not criminal crossings, not cartel-driven trafficking, not fentanyl flowing through weak borders — but the act of federal agents enforcing law itself.
That logic flips the entire relationship between state and federal authority. And it sends a chilling message: that in some jurisdictions, the law is conditional on political preference.
Former acting ICE director Tom Homan pulled no punches in response, condemning Pritzker and others like him for obstructing enforcement and then attacking the enforcers. As Homan put it, “Shame on you.”
It’s not a partisan talking point. It’s a warning. ICE has already arrested over 800 illegal aliens in Illinois this fiscal year. These aren’t theoretical debates — they are active operations to remove individuals who have entered the country unlawfully, often with serious criminal histories. And if state officials begin threatening to prosecute federal officers for doing their jobs, it places enforcement itself at risk.
The deeper concern here isn’t just legal confusion. It’s political opportunism masquerading as policy. If governors begin criminalizing the very existence of federal law on their soil, what’s left of national unity?