Tag: illinois

Trump DOJ Files Amicus Brief Supporting Challenge to Illinois ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban

On June 13, 2025, the Civil Rights Division of President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice announced the filing of an amicus brief supporting an NRA lawsuit against Illinois’ “assault weapons” ban.

The brief was announced by Assistant Attorney General for DOJ’s Civil Rights Division Harmeet Dhillon. In a post to X, Dhillon noted, “The Second Amendment is not a second-class right. See you in court, Illinois.”

The amicus brief’s introduction points to Bruen (2022) and says in part:

Three years ago, the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision meant to break a habit developed by some States of treating the Second Amendment as “a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other” constitutional rights. …[Bruen] (2022).

Regrettably, not every State got the message. Just a few months after Bruen, Illinois outlawed some of the most commonly used rifles and magazines in America via a so-called “assault weapons” ban. In doing so,  Illinois violated the Supreme Court’s clear directive that States cannot prohibit arms that are “in common use” by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes. …[Heller] (2008).

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Illinois Governor JB Pritzker Announces Punitive Actions Against El Salvador in Defense of Deported MS-13 Illegal Alien – “The State of Illinois will Stand Up for the Rule of Law”

Sanctuary State Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois has directed state agencies to take actions against the country of El Salvador in hopes of influencing the release of Kilmar Garcia Abrego, a deported MS-13 terrorist who was living illegally in Maryland.

“The United States Constitution guarantees due process. We are witnessing Donald Trump erode our fundamental Constitutional rights in real time, and we must fight to restore the balance of power,” he reportedly said. “The State of Illinois will stand up for the Rule of Law and do everything in our power [to] stop the Trump Administration from ripping apart our most basic rights.”

The Gateway Pundit has reported extensively on the controversy over Garcia Abrego’s deportation and far-left politicians’ attempts to smuggle him back into the United States.

The MS-13 member was deported and returned to his home country by the Trump Administration over his ties to MS-13, which President Trump has designated a foreign terrorist organization.

However, the Democrats and leftist media describe the El Salvadoran illegal and gangster as a “Maryland man” and “father of three,” who was wrongfully deported after a judge previously protected him from deportation when he was arrested in 2019, citing alleged safety concerns if he returned to his home country.

The order blocking his deportation was granted before President Trump designated him as a foreign terrorist, making him “no longer eligible for any form of immigration relief in the United States,” says White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.

When he was arrested in 2019, he was with two other members of MS-13, and he was known by investigators to be affiliated with the gang, but the judge still allowed him to stay in the country illegally. He was further detained in December 2022 and accused of engaging in human trafficking by a Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP) officer. Still, the FBI ordered his release.

Additionally, as The Gateway Pundit reported, Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez, previously petitioned the court for two different protective orders against Garcia for domestic violence. According to a 2021 order of protection, Garcia Abrego punched Vasquez, ripped off her shirt, grabbed, and bruised her.

This hasn’t stopped radical Democrats from glorifying him and attempting to rescue him from El Salvador’s CECOT prison.

Inspired by Democratic Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen’s visit to El Salvador earlier this month, where he met and shared margaritas with Garcia Abrego, several House Members traveled to El Salvador to demand his release. Reps. Robert Garcia (CA), Maxwell Frost (FL), Yassamin Ansari (AZ), and Maxine Dexter (OR) traveled to El Salvador on Monday to try to facilitate the release of Abrego Garcia, but they were promptly denied.

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DOJ accuses IL officials of having kept noncitizen from ICE accused of murder after jail release

One of several examples the U.S. Department of Justice gave of how federal officials have been obstructed by Illinois’ migrant sanctuary policies involves an illegal alien released from jail later being accused of murder.

“In January 2025, federal officials issued a detainer request for an alien who was being held in Cook County jail on sexual assault of a minor charges,” the DOJ said. “Pursuant to Cook County’s restrictions, law enforcement officers did not respond to the detainer request … Following the alien’s release from local jail, he was arrested and charged with homicide just 17 days later.”

The filing in federal court comes as the state of Illinois, Cook County and the city of Chicago are asking the judge in the case to hold off on tackling migrant sanctuary policies that the DOJ says obstructs federal agents from doing their job.

In a statement of material facts for its motion for summary judgment against the state’s migrant sanctuary laws, the U.S. Department of Justice last week said the federal government has exclusive authority over immigration laws and enforcement and President Donald Trump issued an executive order declaring a national emergency at the border.

“Congress recently expanded the list of crimes that can trigger mandatory detention requirements to include burglary, theft, larceny, shoplifting, or assault of a law enforcement officer, or any crime that results in death or serious bodily injury to another person,” the DOJ said in its filing for summary judgment. “Defendants’ sanctuary policies cause significant harm to federal immigration enforcement and public safety by not honoring immigration detention orders, or helping facilitate access to detainees in local custody.”

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Haunting breakthrough in case of Illinois woman, 23, who vanished one night in 1983

A haunting breakthrough has finally come in the cold case of Karen Schepers, 23, who vanished over 40 years ago in Elgin, Illinois, a suburb outside of Chicago. 

The Elgin Police Department announced on Monday that they have located Karen’s Yellow 1980 Toyota Celica buried in Fox River. 

The vehicle was first located near a boat launch before a diver located the car and identified the license plate, which matched Karen’s. 

The Toyota is scheduled to be removed from the river on Tuesday afternoon with the assistance of professional divers, the Elgin Fire Department, and the Kane County Coroner’s Office. 

Once the vehicle is safely recovered, authorities plan to search for the remains. Police Chief Ana Lalley said in a statement that the investigation is still open and the recovery process is expected to take some time. 

‘As the recovery of the vehicle is made, it is important to stress that this is the beginning of what is still considered an open and active investigation with many questions still to be answered,’ Lalley said in a media update. 

‘As we continue to investigate this case, we will remain steadfast in our resolve to provide answers and closure to Karen’s family.’ 

Lindsay Bussick, the manager of Chaos Divers, a nonprofit organization assisting in the search, told the Chicago Tribune that authorities used sonar technology to determine the license plate and model of the vehicle. 

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Illinois bill would allow addicts to use drugs legally at ‘overdose prevention sites’

Illinois legislators are proposing a bill that would let drug addicts use illicit substances at “overdose prevention sites” under the supervision of medical personnel.

House Bill 2929, introduced by Rep. La Shawn Ford (D-Chicago), would require the Department of Human Services to research the possibility of following the lead of New York and Rhode Island in creating sites where drug users could use pre-obtained substances in a safe environment, and be connected with treatment services.

The bill would grant criminal immunity to people who use drugs at the proposed sites.

Ford said no tax dollars would be used in the creation of the program.

“The opioid settlement fund will be the fund that we will use if this becomes law to fund the program, so there will be no general revenue funds,” he said.

Rep. Bill Hauter (R-Morton) told the Center Square he was torn over the proposal, but ultimately voted for it.

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Secession: Why Redrawing US State Borders Makes Politicians So Mad

Over the past five years, 33 counties in Illinois have voted to secede from the state, presumably to either form a new state or join another state. In most of these counties, the voters were given the option to vote yes or no on  a ballot question that looked generally like this:

“Shall the board of (the county) correspond with the boards of other counties of Illinois, outside of Cook County, about the possibility of separating from Cook County to form a new state and to seek admission to the Union as such, subject to the approval of the people?”

Many of the voters and policymakers supporting the separation note that they consider themselves to be economically, culturally, and historically separated from Chicago and the counties surrounding it. Most of the state’s 13 million residents—more than nine million people—live within the greater Chicago metro area, but that potentially leaves one or two million people—a “state” the size of Montana or Nebraska—who are interested in breaking free of Chicago metro politics.

The fact that the secession efforts keep coming up again and again suggest some political staying power, as does a new development in Indiana: last week, the Indiana House of Representatives passed new legislation creating a Indiana-Illinois Boundary Adjustment Commission. The purpose is to facilitate the secession of separatist Illinois counties and their subsequent annexation into Indiana. This greatly simplifies the matter, politically. Were Indiana to actually annex Illinois’s separatist counties upon separation,  the change would not even raise the problem of admitting a new US state.

Essentially, were Illinois and Indiana to redraw their border, the matter of Illinois’s secessionist counties would be of minor national impact. For virtually everyone in the United States, life would go on as it had before.

Yet, the Illinois ruling class, centered in Chicago, is dead set against the idea. Illinois’s Governor JB Pritzker called the secession effort a “stunt” and declared that it is “not going to happen.” The Illinois attorney general has declared the effort illegal. Critics have adopted the usual posture of those in power when faced with secession efforts like these: a mixture of authoritarianism and patronizing contempt.

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Circuit Court Judge Strikes Down Illinois FOID Card Requirement for Guns in the Home

On Monday, White County Resident Circuit Judge T. Scott Webb ruled against a requirement that Illinois residents must obtain a Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) card in order to possess a gun in the home for self-defense.

The case, State of Illinois v. Vivian Claudine Brown, which was supported by the Second Amendment Foundation and the Illinois State Rifle Association, centered on Brown’s possession of a .22 rifle in the home for self-defense on March 18, 2017, without an accompanying (required) FOID card.

She was charged due to her lack of a FOID card, and a suit was subsequently filed. The suit challenged not only the FOID card requirement but also the fee to obtain such a card, which is $10. Brown argued that the fee “suppresses a fundamental right that is recognized to be enjoyed in the most private areas, such as the home.”

Webb weighed the case in light of Heller (2008) and Bruen (2022), ultimately found that “the defendant’s possession of a .22 caliber rifle within the confines of her own home, even without a valid FOID card falls squarely within the protections afforded her by the Second Amendment.”

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Illinois Governor and Chicago Mayor are Preventing ICE from Deporting Hundreds of Illegals in Local Jails

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, both Democrats, are reportedly blocking ICE agents from entering prisons and jails to deport hundreds of illegal aliens in the sanctuary city of Chicago. 

Real America’s Voice correspondent Ben Bergquam reports that there are about 300 illegal aliens in jail with ICE detainer requests, but leftist Chicago officials will not let ICE take them to be deported.

An immigration detainer is a request from ICE that asks local law enforcement agencies, including jails and prisons, to “notify the requesting agency as early as possible before they release a removable alien” and “hold the alien for up to 48 hours beyond the time they would ordinarily release them so DHS has time to assume custody in accordance with federal immigration law,” according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “Immigration detainers are requests from federal law enforcement officers and agents, and officials only lodge them against aliens when there’s probable cause to believe that the person is removable from the United States under federal immigration law.”

“You’re going to see the federal government come after these cities and states in a way we’ve never seen before,” Berguam said. “I think we’re going to see defunding of sanctuary communities that don’t allow these ICE officers into their jails.”

As The Gateway Pundit recently reported, Illinois officials are working to sabotage the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts through legislative changes and preventing Chicago Police from working with the Federal government to remove illegals involved in drug crimes, gang-related crimes, prostitution, human trafficking, or child sex crimes.

The far-left Governor, JB Pritzker, was also recently caught making up a hoax, claiming that ICE agents raided an elementary school in Chicago last Friday.

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Gov. Pritzker Defies Trump Admin — Declares Local Police Will Defend ‘Law-Abiding Undocumented People’

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (D) warned the Trump administration that his local law enforcement will defy his mass deportation orders and “stand up for those law-abiding, undocumented people.”

CNN’s “State of the Union” host Dana Bash asked Sunday, “How are you preparing, particularly if they do target schools, churches and small businesses as they are now allowed to do?”

“Well, let me start by being clear that when we’re talking about violent criminals who have been convicted and who are undocumented, we don’t want them in our state,” Pritzker replied. “We want them out of the country. We hope they do get deported. And if that’s who they’re picking up, we’re all for it.”

“They show up with a warrant, and we’re going to hand over people who are in our prisons or in our jails who fit that description. Now, what they’re also doing, though, and it’s quite disturbing, is they’re going after people who are law-abiding, who are holding down jobs, who have families here who may have been here for a decade or two decades, and they’re often our neighbors and our friends.”

The Democrat governor went on to assert that Trump should grant these “law-abiding” illegal aliens with pathways to citizenship rather than deport them.

“And why are we going after them? These are not people who are causing problems in our country. What we need is a path to citizenship for them,” he said. “We need to secure our border. We need to get rid of the violent criminals, but we also need to protect people, at least the residents of Illinois and all across the nation, who are just doing what we hope that immigrants will do.”

“We also have a law on the books in Illinois that says that our local law enforcement will stand up for those law-abiding, undocumented people in our state who are doing the right thing,” he continued. “And we’re not going to help federal officials just drag them away because somebody pointed at them and said, oh, that person’s brown or that person’s not from here. Check it out. Maybe they’re undocumented.”

Pritzker’s defiant remarks are setting up a government showdown with the Trump administration that could result in him facing legal action.

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America’s ‘Worst Mayor,’ Boyfriend Get into Physical Brawl with Angry Activist: ‘You Gone B*tch!’

Tiffany Henyard, the mayor of Dolton, Illinois, was seen on video joining in a physical brawl between her boyfriend and an angry activist who called her a “half-assed mayor” and a “b*tch” who “f*ck[ed] her way to the top” at a recent town board meeting.

The video footage, which apparently also features Henyard’s wig flying off, was posted to social media where it went viral.

n the video, the Dolton mayor can be seen throwing herself into a chaotic fight between her boyfriend and an outraged activist who had moments earlier called Henyard a “half-assed mayor,” as well as a “b*tch” who he said “f*ck[ed] her way to the top.”

The activist has been identified as Jedidiah Brown, according to multiple reports.

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