Daily Broadside | Leftist Lunacy in Illinois Gives Foreigners Policing Powers

Of all the insanity and intentionally destructive acts of the anarchists who hate America and the rule of law, I give you Illinois Democrat Gov. J.B. Pritzger’s latest defilement of common sense and respect for the citizens of this formerly great country.

Illinois Gov. Jay Robert Pritzker has signed into law a bill allowing non-citizens to become police officers over the objection of the biggest police union in the state, which called it a “potential crisis of confidence in law enforcement.”

Mr. Pritzker signed HB3751 into law on July 28, allowing non-citizens to apply to become police officers in Illinois with immediate effect, provided that they’re legally authorized to work in the United States.

Foreign nationals who are legally authorized under federal law to work in the United States or any foreign national who “is an individual against whom immigration action has been deferred by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services under the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) process” but who is authorized to possess a firearm can now apply to become a police officer in Illinois, according to the text of the bill.

Federal law states that only U.S. citizens can serve as police officers and deputies but laws and legislative efforts in a number of states have changed that in the face of staffing shortages.

Any guess which states are having “staffing shortages”?

The biggest police union in Illinois calls it a “potential crisis of confidence in law enforcement.” You bet it is — just as the Leftists have planned. It’s just the capstone atop demonizing and defunding the police at every turn since St. George Floyd died of drug induced stress after trying to pass a forged $20 at his local Cup Foods for a pack of cigarettes in May 2020.

The Chicago Police Department (CPD), alongside many other departments across the United States, is hemorrhaging officers faster than it can find qualified applicants. Data suggests that the CPD has lost more than 3,300 officers and staff between 2019 and 2022, but has hired just 1,600 people to fill vacancies after a wave of quits by officers demoralized by the anti-police riots and calls to “defund the police” in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death.

Now that the anarchists’ have achieved their cause célèbre and Democrat-run cities are dealing with a shortage of officers and out-of-control crime — like Chicago — what better way to replenish their forces than with illegal aliens who will do the jobs Americans aren’t allowed to do, like enforce the law?

Perfect!

Not only are Illinois elites ignoring federal law, precedent, and common sense, but they’re giving the big double-barreled middle fingers to the citizens.

Can you imagine an armed foreigner pulling you over and demanding to see your license and registration? How about arresting you for demonstrating outside an abortion clinic, now that Pritzker has also signed into law the “Deceptive Practices of Limited Services Pregnancy Centers Act” targets crisis pregnancy centers using “deception, misinformation, or misrepresentation to interfere with access to abortion services or emergency contraception.” Of course, what any of that means is left ambiguous, not to mention that abortion service providers are exempt from the law.

The new policing law, which gives to non-citizens the power of law enforcement over American citizens, turns any sense of civic order on its head. It would be as if I moved to Spain and was given the power and the authority — a gun and a badge — over the nationals themselves without being a citizen myself. Imagine how offensive that would be to native Spaniards.

Well, same here. It’s like outsourcing law enforcement to the U.N.

Giving foreigners a gun and a badge is not only offensive, but it is troubling, too. If J.B. Pritzker and his minions in the Illinois government are willing to flaunt federal law in favor of non-citizens, what other laws are they willing to flaunt? If a foreigner makes an error in enforcing the law, will the Illinois system of justice favor the non-citizen or the citizen?

If you have to ask, you haven’t been paying attention.

Some Illinois Republicans pushed back on the bill, but only seven out of 40 House Republicans in the 118-member chamber opposed the amended bill after it passed the Senate 37-20.

During the debates on the Senate floor in May, Sen. Chapin Rose (R-Mahomet) said, “To hand the power to arrest and detain a citizen of this state, or a citizen of any state in the United States, to a noncitizen is a fundamental breach of democracy. It is antithetical to the police power of any state.”

Giving people who do not have legal status to become the enforcers of U.S. laws also diminishes the citizenship of native Americans, and I don’t mean American Indians. What does citizenship mean if a foreigner can exercise authority over a natural citizen?

If we’re giving police power to a non-citizen, what’s next? Can a non-citizen run for elected office? Why not? Pritzker has already given illegals driver’s licenses and has considered giving them some limited voting rights.

I have an idea. Let’s have a non-citizen run for governor to replace J.B. Pritzker.

Daily Broadside | 80 Illinois Sheriffs Won’t Enforce New Gun Ban

About a week ago or so I wrote about the new Illinois law that bans the sale of military-style firearms, despite it being clearly unconstitutional. At the end of the column, I said that Democrats use lawfare to make citizens sue for their rights.

Legal challenges have already been filed against the law, which we thought might be our only recourse, but lo and behold, sheriffs in 80 Illinois counties have vowed to not enforce the law. They have all issued similar statements in explaining their decisions. For example, here is the statement that Monroe County, Ill., Sheriff Neal Rohlfing issued.

Part of my duties that I accepted upon being sworn into office was to protect the rights provided to all of us, in the Constitution. One of those enumerated rights is the right of the people to keep and bear arms provided under the 2nd Amendment.

The right to keep and bear arms for defense of life, liberty and property is regarded as an inalienable right by the people.

I, among many others, believe that HB 5471 is a clear violation of the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution.

Therefore, as the custodian of the jail and chief law enforcement official for Monroe County, that neither myself nor my office will be checking to ensure that lawful gun owners register their weapons with the State, nor will be arresting or housing law abiding individuals that have been arrested solely with non-compliance of this Act.

These sheriffs have obviously banded together to defy Pritzker and are turning it into a conflict between enforcing state law and protecting the Constitution of the United States. The state may not infringe on the rights of the people through the law, and the police may not infringe on them through enforcement.

Here’s a map of the counties declining to enforce the gun ban law, effectively making themselves sanctuary counties.

This of course did not sit well with the hard-left, anti-Constitutional Pritzker, one of the many governors who shut down their states during COVID and kept renewing their emergency powers.

Gov. JB Pritzker warned that law enforcement “will in fact do their job” on enforcing Illinois’ new gun ban or else they “won’t be in their job” as some sheriffs have announced they will not enforce it.

The Illinois sheriffs are showing us one way through the constant barrage of anti-constitutional overreach by government at all levels, whether local, state or federal. Just like certain cities and states declared they were “sanctuary cities” where they would not enforce federal law concerning illegal aliens and turning them over to ICE, so the same tactic can be used by those who respect the Constitution of the United States.

How this plays out over the next year will be a good test of this strategy.

Morning Links | 28 Apr 20

(Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

Good morning! It’s day 4,337 of the Yangtze Peril lock down and I admit that I’m starting to get a little tired of this. Generally speaking, I lean towards introvert and work from home full time, so being in “lock down” is just reinforcing my natural state. However, even I’m getting antsy about the duration of so-called social distancing restrictions and think it’s high time we reopen the country.

If there’s a riot for freedom, count me in.

Your links today include a restraining order issued against Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker over the extension of the state’s stay-at-home order; the “delusional beliefs” we’re indulging during the crisis; the Border Patrol at the beach in California; shocking information surfacing in the Michael Flynn case; and someone seeking to make a trophy out of one of the stars of “Duck Dynasty.”