Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker says the state is seeing evidence of the stepped-up ICE immigration enforcement the Trump Administration has pledged to launch in Chicago.
"People are, frankly, afraid," the Governor told reporters Tuesday afternoon after a tour of the National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th St, in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood.
Pritzker said the state has confirmed ICE agents are on the ground in Chicago and beginning their enforcement activities: "We have not seen the bulk of those ICE agents yet in communities, but we have seen some, and we know that they are gathering steam."
The governor says ICE appears to be planning to deploy more than 200 ICE agents and more than 100 vehicles to the city.
"(Border czar) Tom Homan has basically said they're going to work double hard here, in a way that they maybe didn't in Los Angeles," Pritzker said. "As far as I'm concerned, ICE needs to take it down about three notches."
The governor's tour came after a visit to Chicago's Brighton Park neighborhood, where he met with leaders of the city's Latine community. "I will say people are ... afraid to come out of their homes, they're afraid to go shopping, they're afraid to take their own children to school ... because they have mixed-status households. Some are U.S. citizens, some are people who have legal status in this country who are not citizens, and some are undocumented ... Donald Trump likes to talk about immigrants as criminals. These are not criminals."
He says the state is working to make sure that people know their rights when approached by a federal agent.