* To my mind, at least, the AP has a really good explanation of this bill…

The Senate has voted to override a veto of legislation encouraging immigrants who are victims of crime to cooperate with police.

Senate President John Cullerton’s plan was approved 40-12 Wednesday. It would set a 90-day deadline for law enforcement officials to complete paperwork immigrants need for visas to stay in this country.

The Chicago Democrat says it’s prompted by an illegal sex trade which lures or forces girls and women from other countries to come to the U.S.

Federal law established the visas for cooperative victims. Cullerton says some law enforcement agencies delay completion or ignore it.

Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner vetoed the proposal in August. He says setting a deadline could result in mistakes or perjury.

That was a pretty silly excuse by the governor to cover his politically motivated veto.

* The GOP was all about immigration this year and while it backfired in most of the suburbs, it did do the trick in some areas…

Voters in more than a dozen counties recently approved measures urging the state not to pass further gun control measures. And in several counties, the proposals added immigration to the mix.

Some of these ballot questions asked if their county should become a “sanctuary county” for gun owners. This language evokes the term “sanctuary cities,” including Chicago, which have immigration policies that clash with federal guidelines.

In Logan County, in the central part of the state, the ballot question linked immigration and gun control in an even more direct way. The question was a mouthful:

Shall Logan become a ’sanctuary county’ for all firearms unconstitutionally prohibited by the government of the State of Illinois, for everyone except for undocumented immigrants, in that Logan County will prohibit its employees from enforcing the unconstitutional actions of the state government.

The measure passed with 63 percent of the vote.

* Back to the bill, which originally passed the House with 76 votes, far more than needed for an override. WTTW…

Senate President John Cullerton said the legislative push, Senate Bill 34, is necessary because of complaints from immigration advocates that certain local state’s attorneys failed to ever fill out the forms, thus denying immigrants a chance at the visas. Cullerton was unable, however, to cite a specific instance.

“If the authorities don’t think the person qualifies because (they) didn’t cooperate they can say that in the report,” Cullerton said. “All this does is set a 90-day deadline for finishing the report … it closes a loophole in the process.”

Cullerton said Rauner rejected the proposal “over the summer, in the heat of an election campaign with immigration being a political buzzword.”

In his veto message, Rauner called the plan an “unfunded mandate” that would put additional strain on already-stressed law enforcement agencies, subjecting them to “significant liability, even for good faith efforts to certify. Requiring certification within a tight timeline but also subjecting law enforcement to perjury if a mistake is made is an unacceptably risky position to put law enforcement in.”

The bill gained steam from May, when it passed the Senate with 37 votes. The override motion succeeded yesterday with 40 votes.

* Sun-Times…

“Just as lawmakers have come together to raise awareness and fight back against human trafficking, we came together to make sure the existing process works for these victims,” Cullerton said in a statement after the override. “This system was created to empower victims to come forward knowing they’ll be protected if they help us bring to justice the people behind these horrible crimes.”

The federal government in 2000 created special immigration visas for victims of human trafficking and other crimes — such as abduction, kidnapping, female genital mutilation, incest, murder, sexual assault and slave trade — who work with police.

“Immigrants should not be living in fear or hiding in the shadows. Teachers, business owners, social workers, childcare givers, police officers, firefighters, communities depend on them,” state Rep. Juliana Stratton, D-Chicago, said at a press conference prior to the Senate override. “We have to ensure that victims of crime feel safe reporting those crimes to the appropriate authorities regardless of citizenship and when crimes go unreported, the perpetrators of those crimes go unsolved, making communities less safe for the victims and less safe for everyone else.”

* Related…

* Cullerton: Trafficking victims deserve our help, not hateful rhetoric