Illinois was an island of blue in a sea of red.
And the red wave won.
Now residents are preparing for President-elect Donald Trump to make good on his campaign promises and dramatically reshape what the demographic landscape looks like in a state that is home to more than 400,000 undocumented immigrants.
Trump ran his campaign almost singularly on one issue: immigration. At rallies and presidential debates he made reference to an invasion at the southern border, and he pledged to conduct the largest mass deportation operation in history once in office.
The focus of his ire is directed predominantly at Latino immigrants. Despite this, he’s made major gains within the voting bloc. According to a poll from Reuters, 46% of self-identified Hispanic voters chose Trump this time around compared to 32% four years ago.
The gender gap is even greater, with 55% of Hispanic male voters picking Trump, up from 36% in 2020. This is in contrast to 38% of Hispanic women who voted for Trump this election, up 8 points from the 2020 election.
U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Illinois) attributes the shift in attitude to nostalgia and want of a better fiscal time for the country.
“The No. 1 issue regardless of race is the economy,” Ramirez said. “People are struggling right now, and frankly Kamala Harris had three and a half months to really introduce herself, and Donald Trump has been at it, saying the same thing over and over again for a long time.”
The former president is seemingly more popular among all voting demographics in the Windy City.
Vice President Kamala Harris won 77% of the vote in Chicago, while Trump made even more headway than his previous two elections, becoming the first Republican presidential candidate to win the Far Northwest Side’s 41st Ward since 1992.
However, Ramirez doesn’t think the numbers are indicative of a cultural shift to the right.
“People are asking themselves: How do I take care of my family?” Ramirez said. “How do I afford health care? And how do I make sure that my kids have it better than I did when I came to this country?”
Chicago is a sanctuary city that’s seen a surplus in new asylum seekers in recent years.
Ramirez said she worries about what the Trump-Vance administration would mean for one of the city’s most vulnerable populations: non-citizens.
“While Joe Biden is still president and while we still have the Senate, we have a responsibility to do everything we can in our power to extend the most protections we can against Donald Trump and his promises to harm our communities,” Ramirez said.
The path to citizenship may be narrowing even further as the DACA program might, once again, be at risk of being repealed under Trump; there is also a threat to the end of birthright citizenship.
Ramirez was born in Chicago to Guatemalan immigrants, making her a beneficiary of the 14th Amendment.
“The idea that someone who was born in this country doesn’t have the right to be a U.S. citizen could not be more un-American and more hypocritical from Donald Trump,” Ramirez said.
