Winnebago County Sheriff Gary Caruana has reversed his support for a plan to designate a new facility for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to house illegal migrants slated for deportation in the northern Illinois region.
The Republican sheriff had been working with ICE to develop the facility, but after being confronted with angry pro-illegal activists, Caruana did an about face on Thursday, according to Illinois Public Media of Will County.
Caruana announced his decision just ahead of a rally that was planned in downtown Rockford, the largest city in his county and the state’s third-largest metropolis situated nearly two hours northwest of Chicago.
Citing severe jail staff shortages, the sheriff claimed that he had asked ICE to guarantee that only illegals convicted of or arrested for crimes would be held in the proposed Winnebago County facility, but ICE was unwilling to make that promise.
The plan had already whipped up opposition from activists and liberal politicos. During a recent meeting on the proposal, Fred Tsao, with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, accused the immigration system of making money off deportations.
“One of the things that upsets me most about the immigration detention system is the way that it’s being used as a revenue generator,” said Tsao, who was a member of a panel that heard Caruana’s proposal early this week. “It’s a form of selling bodies,” he exclaimed.
“I have emotions, and I understand and feel what these folks are saying,” Caruana told the media after the most recent meeting. “At the same time, I have to run this business called law enforcement, and I have to be prudent with everybody’s dollars.”
The sheriff’s move comes even as his state’s radical Democrat governor has suddenly done an about face of his own and is now claiming he agrees with the concept of deporting illegals who have been arrested for and convicted of crimes.
Responding to comments made during a visit to Chicago by incoming Trump border czar Tom Homan, who said deportation would begin right there in the Windy City, Pritzker was uncharacteristically heard to say he now favors deporting criminals.
“Violent criminals who are undocumented and convicted of violent crime should be deported,” Pritzker said, according to Fox News. “I do not want them in my state, I don’t think they should be in the United States.”
But Homan has not limited his discussion of deportation solely to the criminal element, though he has said that is where the Trump administration intends to start.
Homan also warned state and local officials not to stand in the way of ICE as it performs its job and that he has no problem arresting officials who engage in such obstruction.
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