What does Trump’s second term mean for Chicago?

WASHINGTON — When President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance are inaugurated Monday, a chilling new reality sets in for Chicago and the rest of Illinois.

After years of warm, close relations with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, that open door to the White House slams shut.

Gone will be access to a Biden White House whose politics and policies closely aligned with Chicago area governments and Springfield, instead replaced by Trump, whose hostility to Chicago dates back to his first campaign for president.

There is no high-level player in this blue state with any particular entrée to the Trump world. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Mayor Brandon Johnson, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, 14 of 17 members of Congress, and all other statewide officials are Democrats.

Under Pritzker and Democrats’ supermajority in Springfield, Illinois has become a progressive, anti-Trump haven — locking in rights to abortion and health care and prioritizing a clean environment, environmental justice, sanctuary for undocumented immigrants and more.

Last December, Trump’s incoming border czar, Tom Homan, told a Republican gathering on the city’s Northwest Side, “Chicago’s in trouble because your mayor sucks and your governor sucks,” pledging to make Chicago ground zero for mass deportations. Chicago’s immigration rights advocates have mobilized to be ready for what may be ahead.

As this second Trump chapter begins, here is an overview of how the Trump White House could impact the Chicago region.

Are Illinois state programs at risk?

A state source told the Sun-Times the biggest potential problems the incoming Trump administration poses for the state include:

• Stripping away Medicaid health insurance from 777,000 Illinoisans. Under the federal-state Medicaid program, the state under Pritzker has expanded coverage for the medically needy. Any tightening of Medicaid funds — which Republicans have been threatening — could have a major impact on the state’s finances and the delivery of health care services. Any moves to limit eligibility for coverage would present an enormous burden on Cook County, a major health care provider for low-income people. If Republicans get rid of Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, expansion programs could fold in Illinois and eight other states.
• Withholding federal funds for infrastructure projects. The source said Trump could withhold funds “as political punishment,” and pare back funds for child support and early learning programs — and even withhold education funding for more than 1.8 million public school students.
• Separating children who are U.S. citizens from their immigrant parents. The Trump administration also could deport “immigrants who are not violent criminals but linchpins of the Illinois economy and agricultural industry,” the source said.

What about Chicago’s federal funding?

After the November presidential election, Johnson told his chief operating officer, John Robertson, to prepare the city for the transition from Biden to Trump, since federal funding is vital to City Hall. City Hall officials have been meeting for months with department heads and related entities like the Chicago Park District, Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Housing Authority, Robertson told the Sun-Times.

Robertson said city officials have also been talking to counterparts from New York, Boston, Los Angeles and other cities. City Hall is looking at areas where there “might be challenges or changes in policy, where there might be impacts to the funding that we currently receive from the federal government, and taking a look at policies that we felt were counter to the values that (Mayor Johnson) amplifies as it relates to environmental justice, as it relates to education, as it relates to climate and as relates to affordable housing and any number of things, as well as immigration,” Robertson said.

Trump’s nominee to head the White House Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought, told a Senate hearing Wednesday that a president can block funding approved by Congress — a position that could draw strong opposition from both Republican and Democratic members of Congress.

Vought’s threat has big ramifications for Chicago, the state and its local governments if an activist OMB under Trump withholds funds or tries to install new rules, such as denying grants to any sanctuary city, county or state.

— Lynn Sweet, Washington Bureau Chief

Will Chicago be ‘ground zero’ for mass deportations?

Chicago’s large immigration population — those here legally for years, new arrivals with temporary legal status, or the undocumented — are anxiously bracing for Homan’s agents to stage raids. Unknown is whether those raids could be sweeping, targeted to illegal immigrants accused of breaking the law or just an empty threat.

Immigration activists in Chicago plan to spend Inauguration Day at a protest and march planned for 11 a.m. Monday at Federal Plaza, joining other groups who oppose the Trump administration.

Advocates and legal aid groups will also spend the days ahead monitoring a 24-hour emergency hotline, 1-855-435-7693, operated by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights to identify any enforcement operations carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In Rogers Park, more than 100 residents recently met to figure out how to protect immigrants and alleviate fears of deportations in the community, said Gabe Gonzalez, a volunteer with the group, Protect Rogers Park.

Advocates plan to continue hosting “know your rights” workshops in Chicago. The Chicago-based National Immigrant Justice Center also plans to collect information about violations to a 2022 settlement against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that outlines what information ICE is required to document when conducting a warrant-less arrest or stopping vehicles.

In Illinois, an estimated 1.8 million residents are foreign born, with more than 844,000 who are noncitizens, according to the D.C.-based Migration Policy Institute. There are 425,000 immigrants living in the state without legal status, according to the institute. From 2022 to 2024, more than 50,000 immigrants, many who have pending asylum cases, arrived in Chicago, after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott began sending them on buses and planes.

— Elvia Malagón, immigration reporter

What’s the Chicago Police Department’s role in mass deportations?

It’s unclear how the Chicago Police Department’s Crime Prevention and Information Center could be used as a resource for wide-ranging immigration enforcement efforts. The so-called fusion center coordinates intelligence and law enforcement efforts among local, state and federal agencies.

Ed Yohnka, an ACLU of Illinois spokesperson, said civil libertarians have long-held concerns about data-sharing within fusion centers, “especially for a hostile administration that may be looking to create an example in Chicago.”

Records obtained by the Sun-Times, which would seemingly be useful to the incoming administration, show that CPD has identified Venezuelan-born arrestees and those potentially linked to El Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan prison gang that Homan has vowed to target.

A CPD spokesperson said the department doesn’t document immigration status or provide that type of information to outside agencies. Intel from the fusion center, like the results of facial-recognition searches, “is only provided to authorized requestors with a legitimate law enforcement purpose and with a criminal predicate,” the spokesperson said.

— Tom Schuba, Assistant criminal justice editor

Could Chicago area pollution ramp up under Trump?

During his first term in the White House, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency inspected polluters less and wrote fewer tickets for violations. That was especially true in the Midwest regional office located in the Loop, which oversees Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin and 35 Native American tribes.

“This administration is going to mirror the previous administration,” said Nicole Cantello, who heads the union representing more than 1,000 EPA employees in Chicago and the Midwest. “No one from the Trump administration has said they want to take a different tact this time.”

Climate research was shelved after the 2016 election, and Trump tried to eliminate a $400 million-a-year program that protected the Great Lakes. The program had so much bipartisan support that funding was reinstated by Congress.

The environmental agenda this Trump term? Trump has promised clean air and water, but he’s also touted “energy dominance” in the United States, which points to more excavation of oil and natural gas. Any EPA regulations that would hamper that strategy are likely to be curtailed.

Biden did more for environmental justice than any other president — providing protections for low-income communities, often of color, already burdened with pollution. It’s a longshot Trump would keep the momentum.

— Brett Chase, environment reporter

Will Trump continue the push to diversify the federal judiciary?

Under Biden and Durbin, who was the Senate Judiciary Committee Chair until the GOP won control of the Senate this month, diversifying the federal judiciary was a priority because for most of this nation’s history — and certainly since Illinois became a state in 1818 — federal judges have been mainly white and male. Under Biden and Durbin, the three new judges to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals have all been people of color. Of the 10 Northern District of Illinois judges confirmed, six are females and six are people of color.

Trump never made diversity in the federal judiciary a priority in his first term.

Durbin still holds a powerful position as the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, and with Sen. Tammy Duckworth, could still have a major say in who gets recommended to the White House for judicial and U.S. attorney posts. They did during Trump’s first term, but that could change.

Who will be the next U.S. attorney?

Chicago has been without a U.S. attorney for more than a year because Vance, an Ohio senator, blocked a confirmation vote on April Perry, who later was confirmed as a federal judge. Biden made his pick after Durbin and Duckworth sent him several recommendations.

Whether Trump’s team consults with Durbin and Duckworth on these appointments is an open question.

— Lynn Sweet, Washington Bureau Chief