As Trump intensifies ICE raids and strips sanctuary protections, Illinois Democrats must seize their supermajority to codify sanctuary zones and shield undocumented families from federal overreach.
At a time when undocumented Illinoisans must fear ICE raids that can happen at a moment’s notice and tear apart their families over a victimless civil offense, it is imperative for the Democratic state governments to fight to protect all immigrants, regardless of their status.
As the most powerful man in the world rages at our allies in Ukraine and transgender children at home, the immigrant community in Illinois and the other states of the union face an unprecedented level of danger. Since the second inauguration of Donald Trump and his far-right administration this January, ICE has launched multiple raids across American cities and towns in the hopes of arresting and deporting innocent people: in fifty days, ICE arrested thirty-two thousand migrants.
In light of this aggression, it is clear that the Democratic government, which controls Illinois, must pass a new sanctuary law to provide protected areas for undocumented immigrants to be safe from deportation. In his campaign against undocumented Americans, Trump has rescinded a 2021 executive order that marked churches, schools, and hospitals as “protected areas” where ICE and other federal agencies cannot enter to make arrests. In doing so, he has allowed the federal government to enter places of worship, learning, and healing to exact violence on individuals over a civil offense that harms nobody.
Furthermore, he has disrespected the rights of states, ironically subverting the conservative claim that they are defenders of state liberties against federal tyranny, by having his Justice Department sue Illinois and the city of Chicago for their sanctuary state policies.
Since 2017, Illinois has been a sanctuary state, meaning that state and local level police are mostly prohibited from cooperating with federal immigration authorities, such as ICE.
It is clear that Illinoisans do not want such conservative overreach into their lives, including the lives of the undocumented. This lends greater credence to the notion that the state of Illinois should push back against his intransigence with its own bold, pro-immigrant agenda.
Part of a statewide, anti-Trump, pro-immigrant agenda in Illinois would be the codification of the “protected spaces” precedent that Trump overturned into Illinois state law. This would serve three purposes:
(1) Prevent federal agents from violently disrupting worship, medical care, or children’s learning—all activities that are of such importance that prosecuting civil law does not supersede them, thus providing undocumented people a place where they do not have to fear being publicly arrested or losing a family member
(2) Show the undocumented community of Illinois that their state government is going to have their backs during the nativist onslaught of the Trump years, and
(3) Protect the sanctity of progressive state governments from a federal government that seeks to enforce conservative bigotry on the states, against the will of those states’ voters.
At a time when undocumented Illinoisans must fear ICE raids that can happen at a moment’s notice and tear apart their families over a victimless civil offense, it is imperative for the Democratic state governments to fight to protect all immigrants, regardless of their status.
In addition to being a moral good, such activity would most likely be popular among the voters politically aligned with the Democratic Party. Polling suggests that most Democratic voters believe that Congressional Democrats are too passive against the Republican onslaught, foreshadowing a Tea Party-esque realignment during next year’s primaries during next year’s primaries in which the “tepid” Democrats are thrown out in favor of more dynamic fighters, especially given the Democrats’ current mixed messaging, where they will denounce the “Trumpian” agenda while voting for his bills. Until such midterms, it is imperative for incumbents to fight for progressive values and protect as many immigrants as possible; the alternative is risking either a humiliating primary defeat or an even steeper decline in voter and immigrant trust. Thus, maintaining a strong, anti-Trump resistance is both a moral and logical necessity for all Democrats; this is especially true regarding state-level politics, as in many states, Democrats control state legislatures.
The Democratic Party of Illinois maintains a supermajority in a solidly blue state, so they can argue for liberal, progressive legislation in the fight for immigrants’ safety. However, some of its leading politicians have chosen to preemptively compromise with the Republicans, mimicking the lack of resistance seen on the federal level. For example, when Governor Pritzker proposed a $55.2 billion state budget, it did not have any new protections for the undocumented; instead, the proposal stripped out a $420 million healthcare fund for undocumented immigrants aged 42 to 64.8 This is bad politics, not just because of its immorality, but because in a state with a Democratic supermajority, there is little need to compromise with Republicans, and doing so unnecessarily isolates members of Pritzker’s own party, particularly the Illinois Legislative Latino Caucus.
If Illinois Democrats instead force Republicans to bend the knee, undocumented immigrants in Illinois and the United States will be safer, especially when Democrats can enact radical, federal political change. Precedent has demonstrated that a state-level policy can lead to the adoption of a national program. For example, the Affordable Care Act, which ensured healthcare access to millions of Americans, was quite famously inspired by a healthcare program in Massachusetts (ironically implemented by then-Governor Mitt Romney, who would go on to denounce “Obamacare” in the 2012 Presidential election).9 While this was a limited victory for American progressivism, it had a positive impact on the lives of ordinary citizens nationwide. The successful implementation of a state-level protected spaces law in Illinois could lead to similar laws in other blue states, or even a federal-level law when Democrats take over.
The Democratic Party of Illinois has an obligation to, at a minimum, enshrine protected spaces for undocumented immigrants into law. It is not just a moral choice but also a logical policy to implement, given it shows Democratic voters that the party will take a stand against Republican malfeasance and creates momentum for further progressive change. If the Democrats gain this victory, it will pay dividends for the party statewide and nationally, while also ensuring the safety of undocumented Americans. This is another time period when the people of the United States need and demand bold, persistent progressivism; smaller progressive victories create opportunities for greater ones.
References
1 Damiano-Pearson, Lynn. “Factsheet: Trump’s Rescission of Protected Areas Policies Undermines Safety for All.” National Immigration Law Center, February 26, 2025. https://www.nilc.org/resources/factsheet-trumps-rescission-of-protected-areas-policies-undermines-safety-for-all/.
2 Taer, Jennie. “ICE Arrests 32K Migrants in First 50 Days of Trump’s Mass Deportation Raids — and 70% Are Criminals.” MSN, April 2025. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ice-arrests-32k-migrants-in-first-50-days-of-trump-s-mass-deportation-raids-and-70-are-criminals/ar-AA1ANaiN.
3 Rose, Joel. “Justice Department Sues Chicago and Illinois over ‘sanctuary’ Laws.” NPR, February 6, 2025, sec. WBEZ Chicago. https://www.npr.org/2025/02/06/nx-s1-5288871/justice-department-sues-chicago-and-illinois-over-sanctuary-laws.
4 Federation for American Immigration Reform. “Do You Live in One of the 11 Sanctuary States or the District of Columbia?,” 2020. https://www.fairus.org/issue/do-you-live-1-11-sanctuary-states.
5 Karp, Sarah. “ICE Detains Adult Dropping Students off at School, Acero Charter Network Says.” Chicago Sun-Times, February 27, 2025. https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2025/02/26/immigration-agents-detain-a-chicago-adult-during-school-drop-off-officials-say.
6 Jain, Lakshya. “Democrats May Risk Their Own Tea Party Moment.” Split Ticket, February 21, 2025. https://split-ticket.org/2025/02/21/the-democratic-disconnect/.
7 Cowan, Richard. “Top US Senate Democrat Schumer Signals Party Support for Spending Bill to Avert Government Shutdown | Reuters.” Reuters, March 13, 2025. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senate-democrats-clear-way-stopgap-bill-avert-shutdown-punchbowl-news-reports-2025-03-13/.
8 Sfondeles, Tina, Mitchell Armentrout, and George Wiebe. “Pritzker Touts $55.2 Billion Budget with No New Taxes, Likens Trump Administration to Nazi Germany.” Chicago Sun-Times, February 19, 2025. https://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/2025/02/19/jb-pritzker-budget-address-state-of-the-state?tpcc=cst_cm.
8 Cronin, James. “When Romneycare Met Obamacare.” The Boston Globe, 2013. https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2013/10/12/when-romneycare-met-obamacare-big-changes-expect-massachusetts/4lMPvCS2fIDbInyhLBxxpL/story.html.