How Donald Trump’s stunning presidential win could affect Illinois

With former President Donald Trump declared the winner of the 2024 presidential race, his policies and priorities could affect residents here in myriad ways. Here’s a look at how his win may affect policies and issues in Illinois.

Reproductive rights

Abortion supporters say Trump’s victory could have a huge impact nationally and have pledged to fight more restrictions on reproductive care.

“This is a devastating loss,” said Jennifer Welch, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Illinois Action. “I want to reassure the public that the full spectrum of reproductive health care is still safe and legal in Illinois, including abortion, gender-affirming care and birth control. However, we will take our rage, sadness, loss and fear to fuel the next phase of our fight.”

Trump has bragged about appointing justices to the U.S. Supreme Court who helped overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending nearly 50 years of a federal constitutional right to an abortion. The ripple effect: More than a dozen states have banned abortion, mostly across the Midwest and the South, and even more states have made the procedure harder to get .

Illinois’ role as a haven for abortion rights has become even bigger. More patients travel to Illinois to end their pregnancies than to any other state , according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights health policy research organization. Under Trump’s presidency, Illinois could continue to see that role increase.

Trump has waffled on whether he would implement a national abortion ban. But the presidential transition plan, Project 2025, written by Trump’s allies, looks to curb access to medication abortion, which accounted for 63% of all abortions last year, Guttmacher research shows.

Immigration and new arrivals

Trump has made immigration a central issue during his campaign. He has vowed to carry out mass deportations of people in the country illegally, which could directly affect about 425,000 undocumented residents in Illinois (as of 2019). He also promised to end birth right citizenship, denying U.S. citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants born on U.S. soil.

Trump has also promised to suspend entry across Southern borders and significantly reduce the number of migrants able to seek asylum in the U.S. That would likely impact the tens of thousands of people with pending asylum cases in Chicago. According to data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, more than 30,000 asylum applications were filed in Chicago in the first half of 2024 alone.

Trump has also vowed to stop federal funding to sanctuary cities like Chicago, though exactly what that means and what types of funding he could legally withhold is unclear.

Criminal justice

Trump pledged to “roll back every Biden attack on the Second Amendment” the minute he takes office and fire the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Those promises could have an immediate impact on how gun laws are prosecuted and efforts to prevent shootings in Chicago.

For example, federal prosecutors recently charged a Chicago man with possession of a machine gun after a search of his home allegedly uncovered a switch that can convert a handgun into an automatic weapon. As WBEZ and the Sun-Times have reported, these so-called Glock switches have driven an increase in mass shootings in Chicago. The kinds of federal criminal charges filed last month are unlikely under the Trump administration’s Department of Justice.

Meanwhile, gun-focused news outlet The Trace predicts Trump’s pledge could mean the end of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, created last year by President Joe Biden. That office sent an “emergency response team” to Chicago after more than 100 people were shot over the 4th of July weekend this year, and the Biden White House has sent millions to Chicago to support nonpolicing solutions to gun violence.

Trump’s criminal justice platform as a candidate called for sending the National Guard into “high-crime communities.” If that plan is ever put into action, Chicago neighborhoods are likely to be on that list. During Trump’s first term, Reuters reported that some Chicago residents were open to federal forces, but the ACLU warns it would lead to abuse and repression of the Black community.

Climate and environment

Trump has repeatedly dismissed the climate crisis as a “hoax” and “one of the great scams of all time.”

During his first administration, Trump dismantled nearly 100 environmental regulations. He’s already promised to roll back a suite of Biden-era regulations aimed at curbing fossil fuel pollution from power plants, cars and trucks in a second term.

Trump has also promised to hit the brakes on all federal funding for the clean energy transition. That would mean an end to tax breaks for electric cars and home appliances, as well stopping the flow of the billions of dollars unlocked by the Biden administration's signature climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act. The IRA has already pumped more than half a billion dollars into Illinois to spur renewable energy development and related workforce training.

Overall, Trump’s climate agenda aims to backtrack Biden’s embrace of clean energy — making it more expensive and more difficult to lower emissions and meet state and international climate goals.

Illinois politics

Expect Chicago, a city run by a Democratic mayor who campaigned for Harris, to push back against policies from a Trump White House.

“Is there a stronger word for insanity?” Mayor Brandon Johnson posed at a recent press conference. “Yes, it’s Trump.”

During Trump’s previous term, Chicago mayors doubled down on the city’s commitment to being a sanctuary city for immigrants, sued the Trump administration and pushed back on Trump’s plans to send federal agents to the city. Proposed cuts to federal transportation spending raised fears it could imperil Chicago transit improvements, like the Red and Purple line modernization.

Trump’s current campaign platform already puts cities like Chicago in its crosshairs. It vows to cut federal funding to sanctuary cities and to schools that teach about the history of slavery. Johnson said the city has to take Trump seriously.

“He is the antithesis to the hopes and aspirations and the dreams of our ancestors,” Johnson said. “So not only would it be problematic for the city of Chicago, he would be devastating for the globe.”

The state of Illinois will take a similar approach.

During the first Trump administration, state Democrats slowly built their majorities in the legislature and today they enjoy supermajorities in both the House and Senate. That means at least three-fifths of all members are Democrats, which makes it easier to pass their legislation and bottle up bills they don’t like.

An example of that came in 2019 when the legislature enacted statewide abortion protections in the event Roe v. Wade was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2022, with an even larger majority, more laws took effect.

Gov. JB Pritzker has been vocal against Trump on almost every issue — like the economy, women’s rights and immigration. Under Trump, Illinois lawmakers may attempt to continue to shore up Illinois’ progressive laws, from protecting reproductive rights to LGBTQ issues to immigrants.

“We saw, already, the beginnings of what Donald Trump would do back when he was president,” Pritzker told reporters at a recent news conference. “You saw [immigration] raids in Geneva, Illinois into restaurants just to see if anyone in the back rooms of these restaurants happened to be undocumented immigrants. I think it’ll be like that… times ten.”

“Are there things we can do to prevent it? Sure,” Pritzker continued. “We’ve already passed some laws to help prevent that. But the truth is, we should be protecting residents of the state of Illinois — even if they’re undocumented residents of the state, we should be protecting them.”

Contributing: WBEZ’ reporters Kristen Schorsch, Adriana Cardona-Maguigad, Patrick Smith, Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco, Tessa Weinberg and Alex Degman.