Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem lambasted Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) for how she said he had “invited” criminal illegal immigrants to the state through sanctuary policies.
Standing down the block from where 24-year-old Emma Shafer was allegedly killed in July 2023 by illegal immigrant Gabriel Calixto Pichardo, Noem and more than a dozen elected officials and loved ones of crime victims sought to draw attention to the state’s immigration policies.
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“Since 2017, Illinois has been a sanctuary state. The results have been absolutely disastrous for people who live here,” said Noem, who held up a binder of names and pictures of illegal immigrants whom Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been unable to get turned over from state and local police. She blamed Illinois’s sanctuary policies that block the transfer of people in local police custody to federal immigration authorities.
“Shame on Gov. Pritzker for what he’s done to Illinois. This is a beautiful state with beautiful people, and to allow this kind of criminal activity to go on should never happen,” Noem said. “I’m calling on Gov. Pritzker and all the other leaders of this state to abandon their dangerous sanctuary policies.”
Calixto lived in nearby Bethalto. He pleaded guilty in 2018 to kidnapping in a case against his former girlfriend and served six years in state prison. The conviction was later vacated. He pleaded guilty to a lower charge of unlawful restraint and was released from prison in October 2020. However, he was not turned over to ICE to be deported.
Shafer was stabbed to death on July 11, 2023. Calixto was not arrested following the attack, but he is the primary suspect. A warrant for his arrest on three counts of first-degree murder and aggravated domestic battery was issued the day after Shafer’s death.
“Emma Shafer was brutally stabbed and murdered by an illegal alien who was released into the United States by the Biden administration,” Noem said. “When he was released, he should have been deported immediately. This murderer and illegal alien has now been on the run for two years. He has not been brought into incarceration. And we need not just the governor of this state but also the partnership of local law enforcement to get this family justice for losing their daughter, Emma.”
Illinois became a sanctuary state in 2017. As of 2022, Noem said between 400,000 and 500,000 illegal immigrants were living in the state.
Noem blamed Pritzker’s policies, including free healthcare regardless of immigration status, for drawing illegal immigrants to Illinois.
“Unlike Donald Trump and Kristi Noem, Illinois follows the law,” Pritzker wrote in a statement, but he did not explain why the state will not release illegal immigrants to ICE.
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Pritzker also alleged that the Trump administration was acting against the Constitution by removing children who were U.S. citizens from the country and deporting illegal immigrants without due process.
Springfield became a national narrative in the 2024 presidential campaign when Trump alleged without offering proof that Haitian immigrants in the city were killing and eating household pets. Noem made no mention of that allegation during her press conference on Wednesday.
