From The Center Square:

Illinois home to fifth most illegal immigrants in country

• By Glenn Minnis | The Center Square contributor

(The Center Square) – A new Center for Immigration Studies report finds that Illinois is now home to the fifth most foreign nationals in the country with at least 530,000 migrants residing across the state.

“Although there is much imprecision in the data, the bottom line is that close to eight million illegal aliens, equaling 56 percent of the estimated nationwide total, live in sanctuary jurisdictions,” the report said. 

Former Illinois state Rep. Dan Caulkins, R-Decatur, reacted to the CIS report.

“This is what happens when you make your city and your state a sanctuary state or a sanctuary city,” Caulkins told The Center Square. “It’s an advertisement. It’s an open door. It’s an invitation to people to come, especially when you’re spending over a billion dollars to take care of them. They know you come to Illinois you’re going to get a free abortion. You’re going to get room and board and clothes.”

All told, researchers found some 530,000 migrants now reside in Illinois as the state has maintained its sanctuary state status and the burden on taxpayers has continued to swell. More recently, incoming border czar Tom Homan, while appearing in Illinois, spoke of making Chicago ground zero for the launch of the Trump administration’s deportation plans, with those foreign nationals with criminal records the priority.

Caulkins is hoping to see Homan follow through on its plan.

“I hope he does come to Illinois first,” he said. “I think this is a great place to test their strategy on getting rid of these criminals. Who doesn’t want criminals removed from their neighborhoods? Who doesn’t want people that have overstayed their visas sent home? Who doesn’t want people who have been through the legal system and adjudicated not qualified to stay here removed? We should want all of those things. That’s the rule of law.”

Caulkins argued it’s still not hard to see why Democrats have remained unmoved in their position.

“I think that if you look at it from the point of view of the Democrats and the governor, the good thing is that these 500,000 illegals bolster and make up for the population loss of the citizens that are leaving,” he said. “I’m sure that’s their upside, and certainly I believe they’re going to try to find ways to get them to vote at some point. I think they’re looking down the road and they’re going ‘we’re losing 30,000 people a year for the last 10 years. Let’s get a whole bunch of illegal migrants to come here and then, we’ll be able to keep, keep our census up.’ It only costs, you know, a billion dollars or so dollars a year out of our taxes.”

Gov. J.B. Pritzker and other prominent Democrats have said violent illegal immigrants should be deported, but have said they will stand up to the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump to go beyond that threshold. 

Overall, CIS pegs the number of foreign nationals residing in so-called sanctuary states across the country at around 56.3% of the total number of individuals now reported to be in the country, with California being home to the most at about 3 million.