On Tuesday afternoon, the Division of Homeland Safety introduced that Secretary Kristi Noem could be visiting Springfield the next morning to tout her “Making America Secure Once more” agenda and communicate out in opposition to Gov. JB Pritzker’s immigration insurance policies and Illinois’ standing as a sanctuary state. No time or location for her press convention was publicized, but it surely was believed that she would make an look in entrance of the Governor’s Mansion at 10 a.m.
The Springfield Immigrant Advocacy Community, Illinois State AFL-CIO, 50501 Illinois and different activist teams started encouraging their supporters to point out up and stage a counterprotest. A crowd gathered in entrance of the Governor’s Mansion this morning, many with indicators and a few with their faces obscured to hide their identities, however Noem didn’t seem.
As a substitute, the press convention came about close to the condominium constructing on Eighth Avenue the place Emma Shafer, 24, was killed in July 2023. Her ex-boyfriend, Gabriel Calixto Pichardo, who was born in Mexico and got here to the U.S. as a baby together with his mom, has been charged with three counts of homicide in Shafer’s demise however not taken into custody. Legislation enforcement has mentioned they consider he fled to Mexico after the killing. Pichardo was granted DACA standing as a teen, however on the time of Shafer’s demise it had expired and he was now not eligible for DACA because of a earlier felony conviction.
Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias held a press convention throughout from the Governor’s Mansion at 10:30 a.m. in response to Noem’s go to.
“The mixture of cowardice, incompetence and cruelty is a really scary combine,” Giannoulias mentioned. “So whereas I am glad she’s not right here, we have to step up as as a society, as a rustic and as a democracy to monsters like Kristi Noem.”
