Yves here. The fact that Pritzker is resorting to threats in response to ICE thuggery is a sad testament to the state of the rule of law and political will in the US. There seem to be far too few ways to impede the Trump abuses, save the Dems returning to power, which is not at all a given, even assuming we still have elections.
By Jon Queally, staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams
Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is warning top lieutenants of President Donald Trump’s violent and unlawful immigration enforcement policies that they will not always have the protection of presidential immunity and that lawmakers in the future will seek to hold them to account for their behavior, including unlawful orders given at the behest of the president.
With episodes of violent raids, unlawful search and seizures, and the mistreatment of immigrants, protesters, journalists, and everyday citizens, Pritzker, in a Thursday evening interview on MSNBC, specifically named White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, border czar Tom Homan, and Gregory Bovino, the Customs and Border Patrol commander operating in the Chicago area, as people whose actions will not be forgotten.
Pritzker: "Stephen Miller is clearly ordering people to break the law. So he should know that yeah, it may be three years from now that he is held accountable, but I think it's important for them to know that whatever they do now, it's not like we're going to forget.
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 17, 2025
Pritzker said that all the people serving the president, “including all the way down to ICE agents, can be held accountable when there’s a change in administration that’s willing to hold them accountable when they break the law.”
Calling out Miller in particular, the governor charged that the xenophobic Trump advisor, who has been a leading champion and director of the harsh crackdown measures and federal deployments in Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Chicago, and elsewhere, has “clearly ordering people to break the law.”
Critics and legal experts have said the deployments themselves are unconstitutional, and the heavy-handed tactics of agents have resulted in numerous violations of civil liberties and constitutional protections.
Miller should know, said Pritzker, that “it may be three years from now that he is held accountable, but I think it’s important for them to know that whatever they do now, it’s not like we’re going to forget and it’s not like we don’t have a record of what they’re doing.”
On Thursday, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee Rep. Jeremy Raskin (D-Md.) led a letter from Democrats on the committee demanding that the Trump administration “immediately end its unlawful and violent enforcement campaign in the Chicagoland region, warning that the Administration’s actions are undermining public safety, violating constitutional rights, and destabilizing communities.”
According to a statement from Raskin’s office:
For months, personnel from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have employed military-style tactics in enforcement operations across Chicago, spreading fear, chaos, and violence. Such extreme enforcement tactics have only escalated since the Administration’s announcement of Operation Midway Blitz in September. In early October, President Trump went further, federalized the National Guard—over the objections of Illinois Governor JB Pritzker—and ordered troops to Illinois to enable these unlawful and unconstitutional assaults on Chicagoland residents.
In October alone, DHS personnel have shot two people and publicly advanced self-serving narratives that were immediately contradicted by body camera and surveillance footage, handcuffed an Alderperson at a hospital checking on the welfare of a constituent being detained by ICE, indiscriminately deployed tear gas in front of a public school and against civilians and local law enforcement, placed a handcuffed man on the ground in a chokehold, shot a pastor in the head with a pepper ball, thrown flashbang grenades at civilians, and raided an entire apartment complex and reportedly zip-tied U.S. citizens, children, and military veterans for hours.
In a letter addressed to Trump, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, and Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Todd Lyons, the 18 Democratic members of the committee, including Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García, who represents the Chicagoland district, said, “The Administration claims the mantle of law and order, yet its actions in the Chicagoland area demonstrate it is a catalyst for lawlessness and dysfunction.”
“Violently abusing residents, kidnapping parents and children and disappearing them into detention facilities without access to basic necessities, and illegally deploying the militaryagainst a great American city,” the letter continues, “does nothing to make anyone safer—in fact, it jeopardizes the safety and well-being of every community members.”
Demanding a halt to the attacks by federal agents in Chicago, the lawmakers said “[t]he American people want a common- sense approach to public safety and immigration, not violent tactics that traumatize and destabilize communities. They want leadership, not theater. We urge you to step back from the brink and use your positions to enhance public safety, instead of undermining it.”
Starting with Bill Clinton bombing civilians in Serbia, every U.S. president has ratcheted up the use of unilateral, non-clandestine terrorism outside the U.S. Nobody with any power in our political system raised a finger to stop it.
It was inevitable that those methods would be brought home eventually. Trump’s successor will likely order missile strikes against American cities perceived as hostile, and it can get worse after that.
You can already see what the government was capable of in Philadelphia when in 1985 the police bombed the house the MOVE members were in. Now we will have drones of all sorts (I think I read somewhere the Mexican cartels and Haitain gangs are already using FPV drones) to participate in the warzones of, uh, Portland as Trump said
Indeed. And the response is a sternly worded letter and a vague promise to hold someone accountable for something at an undetermined future date.
Given that Obama has already assassinated US citizens by drone in a foreign country, the next escalation could very well be Trump droning a Venezuelan national on US soil, claiming they were a “terrorist”, and then he or a successor droning US citizens on US soil using the same rationale. Perhaps it will be the newly installed president Newsom calling in drone strikes on Proud Boys, or some other similarly vague group that can be tagged with the “terrorist” label.
Pritzker has a lot of nerve to be the one to call out the Trump administration on this. Just as I was about to submit the comment, I noticed “homan” as part of the url for this article which jogged my memory. There’s Trump’s guy Homan, and then there’s the secret black ops site run by the Chicago PD where they ‘tortured some folks’ for who knows how long called Homan Square. I’m not claiming Pritzker had any personal knowledge of the site prior to the expose (although I wouldn’t be surprised if he did), but he assuredly is aware of it at this point.
Sure would be nice if we had some opposition to Trump that didn’t have blood all over its own hands and its own authoritarian tendencies.
Knowledge of Holman Square? Rahm did.
Bill Clinton also sent tanks against Branch Davidians, very much within the borders of the country.
Certainly the tactics used to overthrow popular governments worldwide constitute irresistible temptations for use “at home.”
A friend forwarded an article about Princeton’s Jan Werner Mueller saying lines had long been crossed. But aren’t we minimizing the role of the phony, superficial mainstream media?
I think I may have mentioned this before (just woke up and I’m not really awake) but the political science term for this is “Imperial Boomerang”
I’m no Constitutional expert, and the law surrounding Trump’s immunity grant has not yet been tested, but given the breadth of protection afforded those given prior grants of immunity during earlier presidencies, and now the 1,500+ January 6ers’ clemencies, it seems that Pritzer’s threat of future prosecutions, at least under federal criminal law, is pretty much an empty threat. It also seems that state law would offer a poor avenue to prosecute administration officials and their agents and employees given the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause since they are all acting under color of federal law. I can now see the administration casting Pritzker’s comments as just more of the same “lawfare” campaign they’ve been complaining about, thereby justifying a blanket pardon by Trump of just about anyone who served his administration. But I Guess that pardon was coming anyway. Not sure what the Supreme Court majority was thinking in issuing its immunity decision which, if coupled with the President’s broad immunity power, basically bullet proofs so much of what the feds are doing. Just like that … banana republic time.
I don’t see why state law is inferior. Crimes of violence are rarely tried in Federal court.
Good point. But I have a feeling that enforcement of our immigration laws is consigned exclusively to the federal government, and that enforcement of those laws will preempt all state laws, including state criminal laws. But, I hope you’re right, although I don’t have much faith in our Supreme Court giving President Trump and his minions anything but a pass on matters like this. I think a federal official would have to have acted well outside the scope of their official duties to lose their immunity to state criminal prosecution.
I see your issue but I think they would not even try an immigration law theory. In Links today, we have that Propublica has ascertained that >170 citizens were illegally detained and even beaten up by ICE. So those cases are entirely outside immigration law.
Wow …
A future federal administration interested in successfully prosecuting ICE would need to “have control” of the Supreme Court, because it would be inevitable that any conflict of a previous federal pardon with state criminal prosecution would be appealed up to the Supreme Court to determine whether their immunity was still valid and Federal Supremacy would override state law.
Without a different makeup in the court, it’s highly likely the Supreme Court would continue to use the “no prior case” loophole that’s commonly used in Qualified Immunity Cases. This loophole would allow the court to dismiss cases brought against ICE or other federal agents who were enforcing laws but violating rights in the process of enforcing those laws, as long as no established precedent exists. The basic excuse being “How could an officer know they were violating someone’s rights if we haven’t ruled upon it yet?”
It functions as a loophole, because courts can always choose to rule only on the merits of prior case law existing, and not actually rule on if rights were actually violated in the case. Furthermore, a court could rule that rights were indeed violated, and bind future law enforcement to not engaging in such rights violating behavior, but because the issue is establishing precedent instead of upholding it, still provide qualified immunity to a defendant and all other possible defendants whose rights violating behavior happened prior to the establishment of that case via the Ex Post Facto provisions in the Constitution.
IMHO, if a future administration wants to maximize their chances of having ICE officers face justice, they would need to have the majorities in Congress necessary to pack the Supreme Court, and then coordinate with states to begin the process of prosecuting those officers under state laws, while also working towards a Constitutional convention or series of amendments to reduce the opportunities for corruption and cement the structure of the Supreme Court and Executive branch to prevent backsliding to authoritarianism.
Such a program would require significant popular support across the country to enact to get the super-majorities in the legislature and 3/4 support of states to get done. Something akin to FDR’s 1936 election results, where he won 60% of the popular vote, but because that support was across all the states, he ended up winning 523 out of 531 electoral college votes. While Trump is unpopular, he still has about 40% broad support around the country, and Democrats are still even more unpopular, so I don’t see a clear path for Pritzker’s threats to be carried out unless this calculus changes.
Well, what we really need in this country is when a new administration comes in, it arrests everyone from the previous one.
Every four years declare a Jan 6.
There will be no legitimate election in 3 years. These fascists are making sure of that. Furthermore let’s assume there is one, the feckless democrats are complicit, and as Obama said regarding Bush’s war crimes, we’re going to look forward not back… And then he proceeded to maintain a kill list.
“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt — until recently … and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.”
― Gore Vidal
Good article here, you’re basically correct but state prosecution might be possible:
https://statedemocracy.law.wisc.edu/featured/2025/explainer-can-states-prosecute-federal-officials/
“The bottom line is that states are legally permitted to prosecute federal officials for state crimes—within limits. The limits stem from the federal constitutional principle that states should not be able to undermine federal policy via targeted criminal prosecutions, a doctrine known as Supremacy Clause immunity.[9] But this principle only applies when federal officials are reasonably acting within the bounds of their lawful federal duties.[10] When federal officials act beyond the scope of their duties, violate federal law, or behave in an egregious or unwarranted manner, state prosecutions can move forward. Even where charges are ultimately dismissed, states have occasionally used prosecutions as a form of pushback against controversial federal actions.”
I feel like the only reason that Pritzker has been so vocal is because he’s one of the few Democrats not dependent on oligarch money, having been richer than even Trump himself (before $trump coin).
That is a good point.
And the Pritzkers were backers of Obama way way way back so there is no doubt a personal element here.
Oh, he’s dependent on oligarch money alright–his own. That makes him as dangerous as Trump himself, in principle at least.
The “other” Chicago billionaire dynasty the Crown family backed Obama early. Whitney W.
Pritzker is threatening lawfare when there is little to no reason to believe that Miller and company will let power pass back to the Democrats. This is only likely to make Trump and company more desperate to hold on to power.
Pritzker should put half as much effort into protecting people in his state from the rampant crime. Years of news stories about numbers of deaths in Chicago might inure him to a humane response, but the folks living through the worst of the crime don’t share his views.
Chicago isn’t ever in the top ten in murders per capita.
Chicago is 22nd in homicides
You have been the victim of a beautiful propaganda campaign.
If your statement is based on an uncritical review of UCR statistics, it might have some value but needs much more assessment.
Ok, do you suggest a more accurate database to look at?
Whoosh.
Aware of the stats, not a fan of how cavalier Pritzker et al, or any other murder jurisdiction officials are about their people being murdered regularly. They can do better.
How?
Chicago could adopt some of the policies that have been working very well in Baltimore in recent years.
But in 2024, while chicago’s topline number (573), was higher than Baltimore’s 230, Chicago has nearly 4 times the population, giving it a lower per capita rate.
Right. If you want to angry, be angry at St Louis’s murder rate. Or Birmingham’s. The Chicago reaction I don’t understand unless its pure propaganda.
We’re you saying the same thing on Jim Edgar’s watch at the end of the 80s when the murder numbers were even higher?
Not a fan of “St Edgar”, for what it’s worth I don’t remember him being involved with Chicago much except for interviews with “Uncle Bobby” Collins on WGN radio, where life was always a bowl of cherries. I turned the dial a bit to listen to both Don Wade and “The Loveable” Bob Lassiter, extreme opposites at the time.
Murders are down both in raw numbers and in per capita basis since the Pandemic. And are way down from the peak in the 90s. When will you be happy with their results?
Quoth Yves: There seem to be far too few ways to impede the Trump abuses, save the Dems returning to power, which is not at all a given, even assuming we still have elections.
Not to worry. The Dems will find their own ways to abuse the powers accumulated over the years. Suggest that maybe the problem is actually the accumulation (and centralization) of powers and you just get called a whackjob libertarian.
Which I am, but that’s beside the point.
Bottom line – nobody (besides us whackjobs) ever talks about getting rid of jackboots. Each side just wants to make sure that it’s their team that’s wearing them…
Sidebar: Presidential immunity may or may not be a thing, but “qualified immunity” for law enforcement who were chust followink orders is generally a going thing, if the Volokh Conspiracy is to believed (and it is).
While temperamentally an anarchist, I’ve acclimated to the sophisticated provisioning of food, housing, and innumerable material luxuries of prior ages we now take for granted.
Embedded as I now am in the vast failing edifice of Capitalism, I find myself (thank you Lambert for providing the name) a Chesterton conservative, “Don’t ever take down a fence until you know the reason why it was put up.” In my experience libertarians tend to Musk things up for lack of interest in systemic dependencies, and the certainty negative consequences wont accrue to themselves. Likely you don’t fit that mold, but growing up in Slacker Austin that was my experience.
That said, I’m 100% with you in “getting rid of jackboots” however possible. Parallel governance structures whereby at community scale we can rebuild solidarity and begin to again implement humane structures seems like the only actionable option to start planning how to pick up the pieces once the rubble settles on our current collapse (of which those of us still employed remain in the Wily Coyote phase). In a better world, accounts would settle: collapse is cultural credit write-down in which all kinds of values get haircuts and one can live or die by which ones you cling to.
I’m totally on board with you regarding the “sophisticated provisioning of food, housing, and innumerable material luxuries” bit!
One of the analogies I use is – similar to the fence one – is that you can’t just knock down a 50 story rickety building that took years to accumulate. Unless you LIKE exciting results. It’s going to need to be disassembled slowly and carefully, though hopefully more quickly than it went up, and each floor (or fence, as it were) should be looked at for value.
A huge problem will remain for libertarians and anarchists (and communists, technically speaking) regarding the overwhelming number of Others who are accustomed to meeting their needs – or meeting the needs and wants of others – at the point of a gun, rather than peaceful and mutually beneficial exchange. Maybe things will be different post-Wiley Coyote. Or maybe humans are just gonna human until a MKII version finally rolls around. It just feels like so much of the sad/bad/mad behavior is hard-wired into the ol’ genes.
MK I did well for 20-30,000 years before MK II mucked everything (except for that sophisticated provisioning of food, housing, and innumerable material luxuries bit) in the last 5-6,000.
Joseph Henrich’s “Secret of Our Success”, and Greaber & Wingrow’s “Dawn of Everything” suggest our nasty, brutish and short tempered nature is more the result of “Civilization” than it’s cause: lots of people lived a lot better without it for a really long time. Surplus production, money, and systematized exploitation / oppression all appear about the same time, with documented roll backs that form the central thesis of the second book.
So we’ve got it in us already, all that MK I residue, if we can just figure out how to manage the MK II psychopaths civilization systematically empowers.
Well … MK I did have methods for dealing with predators. We are, after all, the bunch of hairless primates that used sharp pointy sticks* to evict cave bears from their homes so that we could take over the tenancy.
As one of my anthropology professors described decades ago – and I’ve seen articles over the years agreeing – the average hunter/gatherer works about 20 hours a week to provide for all his material needs. The thing for me is that 20 hours a week does not get me my daily dose of NC, regardless of how many stone knives and bearskins I apply to the project. Also, “modern dentistry.”
At some point we went from “having a little extra on hand, just in case,” which is a good idea, to “gotta catch ’em all!!!! AND make sure nobody else has ANY” which is … not. Somewhere along the way “ostentatious displays of wealth” became respectable. I don’t think people should live like poor churchmice, but the negative-connotation term “conspicuous consumption” really needs to make a comeback.
I think a lot of the recent work on power and psychopathy and how the growth of the first attracts more and more of the second is interestingly on point and matches an opinion of mine that I’ve had for decades: people who WANT power should not, under any circumstances, be allowed anything more powerful than “you want fries with that?”
*yes, yes, I know the sharp pointy sticks had sharp pointy rocks attached. It’s funnier this way, though, and the point is still reasonably valid.
The Pointy Sticks Party!
I like it much better than “Peasants with Pitchforks”!
Yeah, but pretty soon it’d schism into the Pointy Sticks Party and the Sharp Pointy Sticks Party and the inter-party conflict would be …
.
Pointed.
.
*snerk* ;-)
@The Infamous — See “Chomsky and Robinson: ‘National Interest’ Is a Euphemism” in today’s links, and also this article, which is referenced: https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-violence-prerogative/
Even if that hog gets anywhere near power I would bet he does nothing to punish these people American politicians are limp-wristed losers, pathetic shells of people who grovel and beg like beaten dogs.
Even Pritzker with his billions of dollars is not immune to this. In fact, I’d say it’s even more likely he does nothing except spew fiery rhetoric. The first rule of American politics is don’t rock the boat.
Can somebody tutor me in Mandarin and help with my K visa application? I want to live in a serious country.
I find myself having a hard time with both “Yves here” and Nat Wilson Turner’s comment treating Pritzker’s talking about future consequences as either lame or counterproductive, both noting the likelihood of Trump trying to hang on to power anyway (and implying it would be successful?), but neither suggesting their own preferred course of action for an official who must do something. Pit the Illinois Guard against the Texas Guard? Add his own lawsuit to that of the Illinois Attorney General? Or is Pritzker supposed to say nothing?
During the whole of the Biden administration (and, come to think of it, much of the Obama administration), Trump did little but promise future consequences when those administrations lost power. However those threats looked to Trump’s opponents, they were neither inconsequential, nor an obstacle to his election. Enough people voted for those promises to allow Trump to inflict them. Indications are that Pritzker is likely to run for president. Assuming that there will be such an election – which is what Pritzker should do – there are a lot of voters out there that have no tolerance for another “I can restore collegial bipartisanship,” “look forward, not backward” candidate. If there is any possibility of Pritzker running for president, this is a marker he needed to put down, Now. Not because it will back down Trump. Because it will buck up Trump’s opponents.
I’m wondering if there’s a snake-oil sales possibility for “Trump 2028 – And Beyond!” yard signs and t-shirts….
Lately, I have been thinking more about Ernst Thälmann and what he supposedly said in 1933, “Next time, our turn!” He died in Buchenwald in 1944. His party, the Communists, allied with the Nazis to destroy the socialist as they were generally the preferred party being of leftist bent, but not as extreme as the German Communists or the Nazis.
Unlike the Socialists, Communists, or the Nazis, who were not performative cosplayers, the current Democratic Party is, while still being in the way of President Trump and his followers’ dreams of violent revolution. Ineffective and an obstacle. Well, fools are going to be fools.
This is an assignment, which is a violation of our site Policies. If you can’t recognize that Trump’s authoritarian land grab has gone so far as to be irreversible (the US does not do general strikes, let alone other shows of mass resistance), I can’t help you.
Pritzker is in a predicament rather than having a problem. A problem can be solved or at least attacked. A predicament allows no way out.
I wish I had plans or advice for resistance to Trump — many of us had ideas from 2000 – 2020, but the Dems and voters ignored all the off-ramps and cooperated with Bush, then normalized his crimes and built upon them, then chose to “resist” Trump with lawfare on fake issues (rather than prosecuting him for his many obvious and real crimes), then fixed not one but three primaries to keep Sanders or someone like him out of power, imposed the utterly failed Biden administration on us, which in turn failed to prosecute Trump for Jan 6 or any of his other crimes and was so odious it actually lost a fair election to Trump in 2024.
At this point, we’re getting what we’ve had coming to us and IMO only financial and obvious military collapse can disrupt enough to save us.
And they might instead just install something worse when the blender stops whirling.
Luckily, there is a solution!
Class Politics. Not Identity Politics.
Uniting people LIVE IRL outside! Right Now!
Be the sticky glue and antidote to the Financial Vampire Squids extracting huge rents from us and causing us to turn on each other.
Labor
Electoralism
Poli Ed
Entertainment
Mutual Aid
We engage our local power structures while the rest of the world works on an alternative economic system.
2-Front Class War ENGAGED
a possible frenetic dem response to bolster a hitherto tentative position
Sure, listen to what somebody says, but don’t ignore what they do. While Pritzker sure sounds like he’s saying all of the right things, the Illinois State Police are helping ICE beat up protesters. Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t the head of Illinois State Police answer to the governor???
Do you suggest that they get in a shoot-out with ICE and the DHS? Both are armed. I doubt the police would accept orders that lead to them having to try to arrest or interfere with Federal forces. Odds favor them at most ineffectively going through the motions.
Besides, Dems returning to power would simply mean that we’ll have different abuses. As much as I find Trumpian antics distateful, I am not at all looking forward to Dems returning to power on national scene.
I would be immensely relieved by a peaceful transfer of power despite my dread of what the Dems would actually do or attempt to do.
If the progressive/youth wing of the party took over I would actually be excited as long as it’s more Cori Bush than Jasmine Crockett.
Vague threats of bringing to justice in a time of manifest fascism is too little and far too late. This is a bit like letting the crimes happen while doing nothing. A man like Prtizker could grow a pair and help stop this rght now.
Here’s what resistance groups under the Nazis were doing:
– Actively helping targeted groups and people hide, move, protecting them.
– Distributed resistance groups/cells.
– Resource management and communication among and between the resistance groups.
– Response to and countering state and “police” propaganda.
– Choosing between practical vs symbolic resistance.
– Choosing between family/friends and cause.
– Deciding own risk/arrest tolerance.
– Coping with despair and feelings of powerlessness as comrades, friends, family, targeted groups are arrested.
Bill Black joins the dots in Ep #350 of the Macro n Cheese podcast.