CHICAGO – Illinois Republican Governor Bruce Rauner is being challenged by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the city council to stand up to President-elect Donald Trump's plan to enforce federal law concerning so-called "sanctuary cities."
A committee in the Chicago City Council advanced a resolution Monday calling on Rauner to issue a statement of "support for cities that welcome our undocumented family members and neighbors and condemn any effort to strip the city of Chicago of federal funding."
Rauner's office contends that the governor supports immigration policy reform, but has yet to publicly acknowledge Donald Trump's election to the presidency.
Trump lists on his website a plan for his first 100 days in office, which include the following subsection in which he claims to "cancel all federal funding to Sanctuary Cities" on the very first day.
A Trump transition team press release says:
Additionally, on the first day, I will take the following five actions to restore security and the constitutional rule of law:
- FIRST, cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama
- SECOND, begin the process of selecting a replacement for Justice Scalia from one of the 20 judges on my list, who will uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States
- THIRD, cancel all federal funding to Sanctuary Cities
- FOURTH, begin removing the more than 2 million criminal illegal immigrants from the country and cancel visas to foreign countries that won’t take them back
- FIFTH, suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur. All vetting of people coming into our country will be considered extreme vetting.
A loss of federal funding to Chicago would be at least $1.3 billion, according to the Chicago Tribune.
