Pritzker Steers Resistance to Trump as ICE Raids Hit Chicago
(Bloomberg) -- Shortly after Donald Trump’s electoral victory, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker pledged to defend his state’s residents from the president’s agenda, throwing down the challenge: “You come for my people, you come through me!”
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For the billionaire Democratic leader that means protecting women’s and worker’s rights while ensuring his state is a safe place for LGBTQ and immigrant communities. But as US Immigration and Customs Enforcement executed a series of raids in Chicago that started on Sunday, he’s having to weigh how far to take his opposition.
“If you’re a convicted violent criminal, you’ve got to go — I don’t want you in my state, I don’t want you in my prison, I don’t want you wandering around the streets,” Pritzker said in a recent interview at Bloomberg’s office in Washington. The challenge, he added, “is that we also have people who are law-abiding residents of my state who have been adding to the economy.”
Opposition to Trump is a risky strategy for Pritzker, 60. Trump has promised to cut federal funds to states that don’t cooperate with his priorities and Illinois is already in a challenging spot. Preliminary estimates peg the state’s deficit for its next fiscal year at about $3 billion. While Pritzker has helped secure nine credit rating upgrades, the state remains the lowest rated in the nation. Chicago, meanwhile, just had its credit rating cut by Standard & Poor’s and faces financial threats to fund its education and pension fund systems.
Trump’s acting budget director issued a memo Monday instructing federal agencies to halt federal financial assistance, which includes grants and loans, to review if the spending complies with Trump’s executive orders. Prtizker immediately objected on social media questioning whether the president had the power to do this — but if enacted it would have broad consequences for the state.
On Sunday, when ICE raids targeted 260 people in Chicago, Pritzker said for the first time he would hand over violent undocumented criminals who are currently in Illinois prisons. But he also stressed he’d uphold local laws.
We have a “law on the books in Illinois that says that our local law enforcement will stand up for those law-abiding undocumented people in our state,” he told CNN on Sunday. “We’re not going to help federal officials just drag them away.”
Presidential Hopefuls
Pritzker, whose family dynasty is worth $59.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, is widely viewed as a possible presidential contender to 2028, alongside Democratic governors including Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer, California’s Gavin Newsom and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.
The Illinois leader, who’s eligible for reelection when his current term ends in 2026, is coy though on his ambitions.
“My own focus is really on the job that I’ve got right now,” he told Bloomberg in Washington days before Trump’s inauguration. “I do feel an obligation, though, in this moment, to help guide the future of the Democratic Party.”
A week after the election, Pritzker started Governors Safeguarding Democracy to protect state-level institutions against federal overreach. The group is meeting to share ideas and initiatives in the various states “in a bipartisan fashion,” Pritzker said.
Pritzker spent most of the 2024 campaign cycle as a surrogate for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. He raised his profile by being the central figure in bringing the Democratic National Convention to Chicago last August, showcasing the city at a time when Republicans were bashing it over lawlessness.
During his speech he infamously quipped that he was a real billionaire, a line that had mixed reactions within a party divided by progressive and moderate wings. It’s a line that may come to haunt him as Trump, also a billionaire, surrounds himself with the ultra wealthy.
Pritzker has also expressed frustration with Biden over his decision to stay in the race against Trump.
“Our candidate, who had for some time said that he’s up for the job and he’s going to be fine, then had a debate performance that I think, unfortunately, seemed to prove to people that maybe he wasn’t up to it,” Pritzker said. “Then a month later, five weeks later, changing candidates — now you’re 108 days before the election. These are all things that can’t be good for your party, and they weren’t.”
National Stage
While Pritzker won’t comment on his presidential ambitions, he’s taken on a national profile. He’s passed legislation to help ensure abortion access for Illinois residents and founded Think Big America, to help fund abortion access ballot initiatives across the country. That group netted wins in November in Arizona, Maryland, Montana, Missouri, Nevada and New York.
“We can’t see inside his head, but the behavior is indicative of somebody who wants to be on the national stage,” said Stephen Nelson, a political science professor at Northwestern University. “Now, the question that I have is: There’s 2028 for the Democrats, but there’s also 2026, the gubernatorial election. What is the signaling? Is he signaling more to local voters in Illinois, or is he signaling to a national audience?”
Pritzker, who dealt with a Trump presidency during his first term as governor, has taken steps aimed at helping immigrant communities, including outlawing the use of local jails as detention centers for ICE.
The stage is set for a showdown between cities, states and the federal government if ICE agents don’t stick to their promises to target only violent criminals. Pritzker said he will follow state and federal law, and expects ICE agents to do the same.
“He’s exemplified truly good values among the principles, and he has been consistent — that’s why I feel very confident that he will be someone who will continue to protect immigrants,” Democratic Congressman Jesús ‘Chuy’ García of Illinois said in an interview at his office in Washington DC.
Falling Crime
Pritzker’s stance on immigration could backfire if Trump succeeds in associating a nationwide decrease in crime — a trend that’s already been observed — with his deportation push.
Support for Trump has also grown even in Democratic strongholds like Chicago, where 22% of voters picked the president on the Nov. 5 ballot — up from 12% in 2016. Much of the Democrat’s loss has been blamed on the failure to address a cost-of-living crisis that has plagued the US.
Pritzker said that Democratic politicians have to make progress on those central “kitchen-table issues” before they can think about the presidency.
It’s “not just talking about, but then delivering on those things — in Washington, that’s not been the case,” he said. “There’s certainly a real opportunity for Democrats to to win in 2028. I think first we Democrats have to win in 2026 in Congress and every other level of government.”
--With assistance from Miranda Davis and Alicia A. Caldwell.
(Updates with Pritzker response to federal review in fifth paragraph.)
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