SPRINGFIELD: The Illinois Senate has rejected Gov. Bruce Rauner’s veto of legislation designed to ensure immigrant crime victims who cooperate with police get the assistance they need to stay in the country.
The 40-12 vote to override the Republican’s veto came just a week after the end of a national election campaign in which GOP President Donald Trump made illegal immigration a key issue.
But Senate President John Cullerton, a Chicago Democrat, referenced what he called the “ugly black-market sex trade” that coerces girls and women from other countries into coming to the U.S. as justification for setting a 90-day deadline for police agencies to sign the paperwork necessary for immigrants to apply for visas and avoid deportation.
“It simply sets a deadline to wrap up the paperwork,” Cullerton said. “It’s needed because some local officials never did it.” He said it will “encourage victims to come out of the shadows and work with police.”
Federal law created the visas in 2000 to aid victims of sex trafficking and other serious crimes.
Rauner complained in his veto that local law enforcement agencies lack the resources to meet a hard deadline. He said it would pressure them into committing inadvertent errors or even perjury. AP
