One year and 51 lawsuits later, Illinois Democrats lament ‘chaos’ of second Trump administration

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul choked up Tuesday while recounting the state’s first year of legal battles against the second Trump administration, including the effort to limit birthright citizenship — a campaign that felt personal to the son of Haitian immigrants.

But there’s a personal issue for just about any Illinois resident among the dozens of fights Raoul’s office is waging against the White House, the Democratic AG said while marking a year since President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Raoul’s office has joined or filed 51 lawsuits challenging administration policies since then, and has submitted more than 100 amicus briefs in the process to push back against sweeping funding cuts, military deployments in Chicago, restrictions on gender-affirming care, environmental protection rollbacks and other Trump priorities.

Raoul called it “365 days of chaos, 365 days of attacks upon civil rights, on the rule of law, and on the Constitution itself.”

“We are not demoralized, and we are certainly not exhausted,” Raoul said in front of his team of attorneys at the state’s West Loop office building. “We are standing our ground to defend the rights of the people of Illinois and the rule of law, and we're winning in the courts.”

He pointed to Trump’s failed effort to federalize the National Guard to patrol the streets of Chicago as “an example of why to remain optimistic.” Trump gave up that effort — for now — after the conservative U.S. Supreme Court declined to lift a lower court’s block on the deployment.

Perhaps the premier court fight for Raoul’s office early in 2026 is the state’s legal challenge against Trump’s "occupation of Illinois and Chicago" by an influx of federal immigration agents.

“Our communities have faced masked agents with semi-automatic rifles who have created war zones by using tear gas, chemical weapons, and pepper balls against our law-abiding neighbors, including local police officers and journalists,” Raoul said. “We faced it here, we witnessed it in Los Angeles, in Portland, and now we watch the horror unfolding in Minnesota.”

Conversely, the same policies lambasted by Raoul and other Illinois Democratic leaders were celebrated by the White House Tuesday on a list of “365 wins in 365 days” for Trump, including driving "the number of unaccompanied illegal immigrant children crossing into the country to a record low."

The president highlighted “targeted enforcement operations in Chicago, resulting in the city’s fewest murders since 1965” — although in fact, the White House can’t take all credit for crime falling in the city. It started dropping before he took office, and experts have yet to fully explain why violent crime figures have fallen precipitously in Chicago and beyond since a COVID-19 pandemic spike.

“It’s been an amazing period of time,” Trump said in the White House press briefing room, boasting of accomplishing “more than any other administration has done by far.”

Gov. JB Pritzker, a potential 2028 presidential contender who has positioned himself as one of the most forceful national voices against Trump, staged a roundtable at an Uptown coffee shop with local business owners and other professionals decrying the effects of Trump policies, from reduced day care funding to increased supply prices.

“When tariffs go up, Illinois manufacturers feel it,” Pritzker said. “When trade wars escalate, Illinois farmers pay the price. When health care costs surge, Illinois families have to make impossible choices, and when Washington breaks its promises, real people bear the consequences.”

Pritzker underscored “the uncertainty that has caused more than just anxiety. It's actually keeping people away from seeking services… They're threatening to take something away, then we take them to court and it gets restored.”

Raoul suggested his office could use more resources from state lawmakers to stay afloat in the sea of legal battles. He pushed for increased funding from Springfield in last year’s budget season, though that $15 million boost was mostly neutralized by a decline in proceeds from his office’s proceeds from other litigation.

“The strain has been a real one,” Raoul said. “But even if we didn't have this type of administration, I would be appealing to the General Assembly to do more, so we can serve the public in all areas.”

Pritzker will deliver his budget proposal next month, with lawmakers on the clock to pass a spending plan by the end of May.

In a statement, the Illinois Republican Party said: “President Trump returned to office to clean up Joe Biden’s mess. He’s done more in one year than most presidents do in four — and he’s just getting started!”