Chambana Sun

State Senator Chapin Rose (R-Mahomet) issued a statement following a fatal DUI crash involving an undocumented immigrant in Clark County, Illinois. The incident resulted in the deaths of Coles County Board member Mike Clayton and his wife, Gail, and left two others injured.

Rose stated, “It has now been confirmed that the Clark County Sheriff has received an ICE detention order for the suspect in the horrific DUI accident that killed Coles County Board member Mike Clayton and his wife, Gail, and also horribly injured two others Friday night.”

He criticized current state laws regarding cooperation with federal immigration authorities. “Worse yet, under Illinois’s idiotic laws that protect illegals and criminals over citizens – laws that Governor Pritzker refuses to fix – the Clark County Sheriff is not even allowed to enforce the ICE order to detain the suspect, Edwin O. Pacheco-Meza. It is also totally ridiculous that the Illinois State Police have apparently been ordered not to release the citizenship status of the suspect – hiding the basic details of this tragedy from the public at large,” said Rose.

Rose further commented on previous incidents involving undocumented immigrants in similar cases. “The Claytons are, at least, the 5th and 6th DUI related death in east central Illinois by an illegal in as many years. How many more have to die before Governor Pritzker stops worrying about being President and starts standing up for the actual citizens of Illinois?”

Senator Rose has represented Illinois's 51st Senate District since 2013 after succeeding Kyle McCarter.