Politics
Homeland Security Head Noem Criticizes Pritzker, Johnson in Illinois Visit While Local Officials Brand Her a ‘Liar’
Kristi Noem speaks at a Homeland Security office in Lombard on Aug. 8, 2025. (WTTW News)
As Kristi Noem took aim at sanctuary city policies during a visit to suburban Chicago, local officials told the Homeland Security secretary she’s not welcome in Illinois.
Noem, whose office oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), visited suburban Lombard on Friday to criticize Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, whom she claimed have “worked so hard to protect these dangerous criminals” through their refusal to cooperate with ICE officials.
“They’d rather be a sanctuary state and continue to put those individuals above American citizens,” she said.
The Illinois Trust Act was designed to protect undocumented immigrants by prohibiting state and local law enforcement officials from cooperating with federal immigration officials.
ICE is at the center of President Donald Trump administration’s efforts to carry out his mass deportation agenda.
Noem on Friday highlighted recent ICE arrests and claimed the agency has only targeted “dangerous criminal illegal aliens.”
But local elected officials called Noem a liar and said her “racism and xenophobia” have no place in Illinois.
U.S. Rep. Sean Casten, whose 6th District includes Lombard, said Noem’s failures at the Department of Homeland Security have harmed American families and will have “lasting, negative ripple effects on the American economy.”
“The only reason she has her job is because she is so doggone terrified of anyone who does not look like her that she will eagerly forsake the Constitution anytime Donald Trump asks,” Casten said in a statement.
U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García — who joined U.S. Sen Dick Durbin in writing a letter to Noem and other federal officials calling on them to end their “unlawful attacks” on sanctuary policies — claimed the Homeland Security secretary is “lying and she knows it.”
“The vast majority of people ICE has detained have no criminal record,” García said in a statement. “ICE has been detaining and deporting hundreds of thousands of working people, mothers with children, student activists, tourists with visas and even U.S. citizens, all to meet the absurd quotas Trump has established, and fulfill the racist immigration policy Stephen Miller is directing.”
Late last month, a federal judge tossed out a Trump lawsuit and refused to invalidate the state, city and county sanctuary laws designed to protect undocumented immigrants in Chicago by prohibiting local law enforcement officials from helping federal agents.
The Trump administration’s lawsuit, filed in February, argued that the city’s Welcoming City ordinance and the Illinois Trust Act reflects “an intentional effort to obstruct the Federal Government’s enforcement of federal immigration law and to impede consultation and communication between federal, state, and local law enforcement officials that is necessary for federal officials to carry out federal immigration law and keep Americans safe.”
During her visit, Noem highlighted recent arrests made in Illinois and presented drug and firearm evidence she said ICE agents have recovered during local operations. She also discussed her department’s recent decision to remove age limits for new ICE hires.
Earlier this summer Congress passed a spending bill that gives ICE money to hire 10,000 more staff.
ICE applicants previously had to be at least 21 years old and no older than 37 or 40, depending on what position they are applying for. Noem recently said applicants could now be as young as 18.
“I think us opening up the age requirement is wonderful for people to have opportunities that they’ve always wanted,” she said Friday.
Heather Cherone and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
