Here’s what’s wrong with Pritzker’s emergency power proclamation for immigration crisis

(Editor's note: This article was published first at Wirepoints)

You needn’t look much beyond the four corners of Gov. JB Pritzker’s latest emergency disaster proclamation to see what’s wrong with Illinois’ response to illegal immigration. Pritzker issued his eighteenth such monthly proclamation on January 5.

The proclamation itself recites one central reason for the disaster – the state’s own doing. “Illinois is a welcoming state,” it proudly says.

Indeed it is, and the proclamation is specific, listing some of the assistance the state offers: emergency shelter and housing; food; health screenings, medical assessments and treatment; case management services including legal services and job readiness support; benefits for victims of trafficking, torture, and other serious crimes; enrollment in public schools; and longer-term housing and housing assistance.

Not mentioned is that Illinois has never put any serious pressure on the Biden Administration to enforce the border, lack of which is the primary cause of the crisis.

The proclamation, which also contains an order, authorizes Pritzker alone to do pretty much all he wants for immigrants:

• It authorizes Pritzker to “transfer the direction, personnel, or functions of State departments and agencies” as necessary to implement emergency measures.
• It suspends ordinary purchasing rules — the Illinois Procurement Code and the Illinois Governmental Joint Purchasing Act – insofar as they would get in the way.
• For grant-making, it suspends the Grant Accountability, Transparency Act and the Illinois Administrative Code, which require the state to conduct merit-based applications and review, insofar as they would get in the way.
• It covers the entire state, proclaiming all counties as disaster areas.
• Most importantly, it keeps active the State Emergency Operations Plan. That plan consists of hundreds of pages allowing for displacement of seemingly all normal state operation – everything from public safety, communications, transportation, housing and healthcare to household pets.

In short, it’s a massive transfer of legislative power to one person – the executive – Pritzker.

Blame the ruling majority of the General Assembly for that abrogation of responsibility. It could amend and limit Pritzker’s emergency powers whenever it wants, but it won’t. State Sen. Terri Bryant (R-Murphysboro) put it this way: “If nobody’s checking him, or he’s spending unbridled in this, so far his personality says to me he will file another [emergency declaration] and when he does it will be business as usual…. If he continues to be allowed to because the Democrat leadership in the Senate continues to allow him to do that, then why would he stop?”

How much of that authority will be exercised by Pritzker is unknown because the end of this catastrophe is unknown. Some 3.2 million illegal entrants were encountered nationally last year, a record, plus hundreds of thousands of “gotaways” – illegal immigrants who were never encountered by immigration officials. And the pace has been growing.

We know, however, that Pritzker initially used emergency powers to activate about 75 National Guardsmen when the emergency was first declared in September 2022. Money has also been spent on emergency spending. In November, he authorized an additional $160 million of migrant assistance, taken from the budget for the Illinois Department of Public Health.

We’ve seen this before. For over three years, Pritzker executed consecutive, monthly emergency proclamations to address Covid. His Covid policies were riddled with mistakes that were obvious as they were being made, which we catalogued here.

Compassion and help are appropriate for those arriving here. They were induced to come by our own state and federal government. But that compassion must be restrained by the reality that an open border combined with government assistance is suicidal. The border must be enforced and most of those arriving illegally should ultimately have to leave.

Pritzker has said that the border situation is “untenable.” Yes, it is, and it’s thanks solely to him and his allies. His proclamation, and the state’s entire response to illegal immigration, is self-destructive, autocratic and hypocritical.