As Illinois House returns to Springfield, Democrats focus on Trump

Article Summary

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (Capitol News Illinois) — Illinois House Democrats kicked off their spring session this week in a mostly symbolic fashion, denouncing President Donald Trump’s policies in a series of resolutions criticizing immigration raids and cuts to health care and child care programs.

“The session was an opportunity for us to emphasize how these policies in the federal government impact Illinois,” House Rep. Lillian Jiménez, D-Chicago, said.

The Democrat-led symbolic resolutions targeted Trump’s tariffs, excessive use of force by federal immigration agents, the freezing of affordable child care funds and the expiry of Affordable Care Act subsidies. They even denounced the administration’s push to acquire territory overseas while Illinoisans face affordability challenges at home.

They all passed overwhelmingly over Republican objections.

“We basically did nothing but allow Democrats in the General Assembly to grandstand on things that are happening in D.C, that we have zero impact on,” House Rep. Jeff Keicher, R-Sycamore, told Capitol News Illinois.

House Rep. Jaime M. Andrade Jr., D-Chicago, kicked off the Wednesday session by calling out aggressive actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, citing the killing of Silverio Villegas González in Franklin Park in September last year and Renee Good in Minnesota early this month.

Andrade filed House Resolution 622 which condemned the use of “excessive and deadly force” by ICE agents, and called for an independent investigation into the Department of Homeland Security for killings and deaths of detainees in custody. Democrats also  called for the resignation of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem over her handling of immigration enforcement.

Democrats then focused on the impact of federal funding cuts.

Jiménez filed House Resolution 621, which called for the immediate unfreezing of federal child care funds, saying the session was a way to signal to constituents what their priorities are.

House Resolution 620 called on Congress to reinstate health care subsidies that expired on Dec. 31, 2025, and end what they called the “Trump healthcare affordability crisis.”

Democrats voted to approve House Resolution 624, filed by Rep. Lisa Hernandez, D-Cicero, condemning “Trump’s efforts to acquire territories and titles overseas, while leaving working families at home to pay the bill.”

She told Capitol News Illinois that taxpayer money was being used to fund operations that could be used to prioritize the needs of Americans.

It came just hours after President Trump spoke to global leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday. He made the case earlier that day for why the U.S. should own Greenland, a self-governing territory under NATO ally Denmark.

But the resolutions met fierce pushback from House Republicans, who slammed the proposals as symbolic rather than productive and characterized them as theatrics.

Only one actionable joint resolution passed, which confirmed the House and Senate will convene in a joint session on Feb. 18  for Gov. JB Pritzker’s budget address.

Georgia Epiphaniou and Erika Tulfo are graduate students in journalism with Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, and fellows in its Medill Illinois News Bureau working in partnership with Capitol News Illinois.  

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

This article first appeared on Capitol News Illinois and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.