A recent federal court ruling in which U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn struck down key provisions of Illinois’s RISE Act, which had extended in-state tuition, financial aid, and scholarship eligibility to undocumented immigrants at Illinois public universities. Dan Proft noted the ruling has been stayed for 14 days to allow the state an opportunity to appeal, and credited the Trump administration’s involvement in challenging the policy as a win for Illinois taxpayers and families. Proft also cited a Department of Homeland Security release detailing the arrest of a Venezuelan national accused of abducting and sexually assaulting a nine-year-old girl in Kane County, criticizing local Chicago media for omitting the suspect’s immigration status from initial coverage, information Proft said was only available through federal government reporting.
Proft welcomed Mark Glennon, founder of Wirepoints, to discuss both the court ruling and broader accountability questions facing Illinois government. Glennon connected the conversation to earlier discussion of newly released diary entries from Dr. Anthony Fauci, arguing that Governor JB Pritzker’s pandemic-era policies closely mirrored federal guidance without sufficient independent scrutiny, and expressed hope the diary’s release might prompt a broader retrospective examination of Illinois’s COVID-era decision-making, which Glennon said his organization began questioning publicly as early as March 2020 despite facing public criticism at the time.
On the RISE Act ruling, Glennon said the decision appeared legally sound, resting on a federal statute permitting the use of taxpayer funds for undocumented immigrants only when doing so does not discriminate against U.S. citizens, a standard the Illinois programs failed to meet since they were exclusively available to undocumented students. Glennon noted with some surprise that the court’s opinion did not directly address broader constitutional questions related to the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause, suggesting that issue could resurface if the ruling is appealed.https://youtu.be/ov_xQeCv6kM
Glennon and Proft also discussed ongoing litigation involving former Cook County Judge James Brown, who was removed from a temporary bench assignment after bar associations objected to a pro-Trump opinion piece he wrote while retired, and contrasted that outcome with the case of sitting Cook County Circuit Court Judge Cynthia Ramirez, who has publicly criticized ICE and compared President Trump to Adolf Hitler on social media without apparent consequence. Glennon characterized the disparity as evidence of inconsistent standards within the state’s judiciary.
Proft and Glennon closed by discussing what they characterized as a lack of organized public pushback against sanctuary state and immigration policies in Illinois, contrasting vocal activism opposing ICE enforcement with what they described as comparative silence from residents and civic groups who might hold different views. Glennon suggested that earlier reluctance to publicly voice such positions, driven by fear of being labeled racist or xenophobic, no longer offers a credible explanation given how broadly and frequently such accusations are now made across the political spectrum, and expressed frustration at what he views as a broader failure of civic engagement on these issues at the local level.