Pritzker's belated, disgraceful comments on Chicago's latest sanctuary murder

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T

Earlier in the week, we told you about the heartbreaking and enraging murder of 18-year-old college student Sheridan Gorman. Authorities say she was shot and killed by a Venezuelan illegal immigrant who was released into the United States by the Biden administration in the spring of 2023.

Within days of his illegal entry, the murder suspect was arrested on charges of shoplifting in Chicago, a second crime in a matter of a few weeks. He was promptly released again, and federal immigration enforcement officers were not notified of his detainment, in accordance with Democrats' pro-illegal immigration 'sanctuary' policies. He proceeded to not show up for his scheduled court date, a third crime, triggering an open warrant for his arrest.

That arrest did not arrive until after prosecutors say he shot a young woman in the back as she fled. The suspect missed his first post-murder court appearance, incidentally, instead undergoing (presumably taxpayer-funded) treatment for tuberculosis at a local hospital. His contagious condition did not, apparently, prevent him from allegedly executing a young woman in an apparent thrill kill along the shores of Lake Michigan.

The murder happened in the very early hours of last Thursday morning. Many elected officials in Chicago ignored or avoided the story for as long as they could. Politically aligned media outlets such as CNN and MS Now did not cover it for days. Sheridan was gunned down in cold blood just after the calendar turned to March 19. The governor of Illinois, a presidential aspirant who signed a pro-criminal "reform" bill into law and mocked President Donald Trump for suggesting Chicago has a serious crime problem, finally made a public comment about it on the evening of March 23, more than four days after the killing. He tweeted, "Sheridan Gorman's murder is a tragedy — and the person responsible must be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. My deepest condolences to the family, friends, and Loyola University community grieving this devastating loss. May her memory be a blessing." The post racked up several hundred retweets, but elicited thousands of replies, many of them furious.

It's worth noting that in January, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzkercommented early and often about a pair of ICE-involved shootings in Minneapolis, a city outside his jurisdiction. He was positively eager to inveigh against those incidents, posting content and giving interviews, again, early and often. He traveled to Minnesota for a related photo-op. In stark contrast, it took him well over half a week to even address Gorman's murder, which happened in his state, along the very lakeshore he'd recently and snarkily advertised as very safe. He only did so after online critics turned up the heat, spotlighting and tracking his silence as the hours and days passed. He had to be shamed into mentioning a story that he likely perceived as an inconvenient political nuisance that detracted from his preferred partisan narratives and personal ambitions. Two phrases he used in his initial tweet deserve extra attention: "Held accountable" and "fullest extent of the law."

The murder suspect could and should have faced accountability multiple times before he allegedly pulled the trigger and snuffed out a promising young life. Applying the "fullest extent of the law" to him on a single prior occasion would have prevented this atrocity. Rather than facing accountability and the law when he illegally entered our country, a pro-illegal immigration Democratic administration waved him into the nation's interior (it's unclear whether he arrived with his communicable disease; the flood of illegal immigrants under the Biden administration endured little-to-no vetting). When he was arrested on charges for another crime within a matter of days — imagine the arrogance and sense of impunity required to wilfully enter a sovereign country unlawfully, then promptly break more laws — accountability and "the law" were once again elusive. In fact, policies in Democrat-dominated Chicago and Illinois protected, rewarded, and emboldened him. The politicians who abetted his subsequent murder do not get to deliver righteous lectures about accountability or the rule of law. The day after his woefully belated tweet, Pritzker spoke to the media about the murder. Here's part of what he said (emphasis added):

"This has been a terrible tragedy, and I know that the Gorman family has suffered mightily. I agree there have been real failures. Those failures of course extend beyond the borders of Illinois, that [there are] national failures. A failure to have comprehensive immigration reform, a failure of the president to follow his own edict to go after the worst of the worst. In my view, we have a lot of work that we need to continue to do, but it is the job of the federal government to go after immigration enforcement, and it is a job of our local and state law enforcement to prosecute or to catch violent criminals and prosecute them. And we should continue to do that both on the state level and the national level."

Note the passive voice, "there have been real failures." What was he just saying about accountability?

As we've argued, the system did not fail here. It worked as designed by people such as JB Pritzker. When the governor lists some specific failures, he goes out of his way to talk about how they are external to his state. He blames a lack of "comprehensive immigration reform," a bizarre choice that is totally irrelevant to the policy choices he and his party made that empowered the immigrant who arrived illegally, in custody for the murder he's talking about. He then blames the sitting president, a man who sealed his Democratic predecessor's open border, and who vocally opposes Chicago's and Illinois' soft-on-crime and "sanctuary" policies that directly contributed to this appalling crime. Buck-passing Pritzker complains that Trump has "failed" to "go after the worst of the worst," which is a remarkable bit of dishonesty. Until the moment this accused killer fired a bullet through a girl's body as she ran away from him, Pritzker and his ilk would have insisted that he didn't qualify as the worst of the worst. He'd "only" committed a string of "non-violent" crimes, you see. They actively shielded him from accountability, even after non-immigration-related law-breaking.

Trump's position is that this man should have been stopped at the border and immediately repatriated, not let into the U.S. — and it's Trump's position that ICE should have been notified after his previous Chicago arrest, resulting in his deportation. If either of these actions had been taken, Sheridan Gorman would be enjoying her spring semester right now.

But they weren't taken because JB Pritzker and his party actively oppose those actions. Because of their reckless, lawless pro-illegal immigration extremism, an object of their "compassion" graduated to "worst of the worst" status by allegedly stealing a life. The absolute gall of Pritzker to critique Trump over this. Finally, the Illinois governor intones that "it is the job of the federal government to go after immigration enforcement." Again, how utterly shameless.

Pritzker adamantly opposes federal immigration enforcement. He rails against it in his state. His policies undermine and obstruct it. Here is a left-wing outlet hailing a radical law Pritzker championed to further protect illegal immigrants and tie the hands of law enforcement. He called for the abolition of ICE. To effectively turn around and wag his finger at the feds to do their job on the enforcement front is misleading and cowardly.

Pritzker's extended silence on the murder of Sheridan Gorman was disgraceful. Given what he finally said, however, perhaps keeping his mouth shut would have been preferable.