Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, announced Wednesday that he’ll direct several state agencies to review their ties to El Salvador in the wake of what his office called “aiding the Trump administration’s unlawful and unconstitutional actions.”
“The United States Constitution guarantees due process. We are witnessing Donald Trump erode our fundamental Constitutional rights in real time, and we must fight to restore the balance of power. The State of Illinois will stand up for the Rule of Law and do everything in our power to stop the Trump administration from ripping apart our most basic rights,” Pritzker, who is considered to be a potential 2028 presidential candidate, said in a statement.
In a release, Pritzker’s office said that it had directed various Illinois pension funds to review whether they are invested in any companies that are based in El Salvador and that it had ordered the Illinois Department of Central Management Services to evaluate whether any state procurement contracts have been granted to companies based in or controlled by El Salvador.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has sided with Trump in recent weeks in the high-profile deportation case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. The Trump administration admits that Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported to El Salvador but maintains that he was a member of the violent MS-13 gang, despite his wife’s and his attorney’s statements to the contrary.
Members of the Trump administration have also said that because Abrego Garcia is in the custody of El Salvador, they cannot bring him back to the United States. Bukele has declined to free Abrego Garcia.
“Of course I’m not going to do it,” Bukele told reporters during an Oval Office meeting with Trump this month. “The question is preposterous.”
On Sunday, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who visited Abrego Garcia in El Salvador last week, said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that disinvesting from the country could be one method of putting pressure on Bukele to release Abrego Garcia.
“There are also pressures we can put on the government of El Salvador, including through, you know, you know, people deciding not to invest in El Salvador, Americans not traveling to El Salvador. So I think there are other pressure points,” Van Hollen said.
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