A bill that would tighten homeschooling regulations in Illinois missed a key deadline on Friday. But its sponsor, Rep. Terra Costa Howard, said it’s still alive — and she’s working on changes recommended by fellow lawmakers to get it passed.

“We recognize that there’s some more changes that need to be made and so we want to be respectful of the process,” Costa Howard, D-Glen Ellyn, told Capitol News Illinois. “I want to pass a bill that we can be proud of. And even though I’m proud of the bill now, I want to be able to take into consideration some of the other suggestions that have been made.”

The proposal, amended twice in recent weeks, would require parents to file a declaration of intent with their regional office of education. If a truancy investigation arises, officials could ask for schoolwork or lesson plans.

Costa Howard introduced the bill after a Capitol News Illinois and ProPublica investigation last summer revealed Illinois’ lack of oversight in cases where children weren’t receiving an education. Illinois has some of the loosest homeschooling laws in the country, and multiple truancy officers told reporters that when they investigated a truancy case and parents claimed they were homeschooling, the investigation came to a grinding halt, even if concerns remained.

In the worst cases, children disappeared from school and endured abuse or neglect at home for years before authorities became aware.

The bill has become one of the most divisive issues at the Capitol this session, drawing thousands of opponents led by two Christian homeschooling organizations: Illinois Christian Home Educators and the Home School Legal Defense Association.

On Thursday, Will Estrada, in an upbeat message on the Home School Legal Defense Association’s Facebook page, shared news that the bill’s sponsors “did not have the votes currently on the floor to move the bill.” The organization’s chief legal counsel called it “hard to overstate how significant this news is.” Estrada congratulated homeschooling families for their efforts, adding, “The good news is your phone calls, your efforts, your talking to your friends, your continuing to get the word out to the legislators in Springfield, your voices are being heard.”

However, Estrada cautioned that the stall “doesn’t mean the battle is over.”

On Saturday, Estrada joined Illinois Christian Home Educators Executive Director Kirk Smith in a Facebook video message from a homeschooling conference in Peoria. They urged their followers to tone down their efforts during the legislative break that coincides with Passover and Easter.

“We have kind of a change of strategy,” Estrada said.

“We want to limit the activity politically this week,” Smith added. “We encourage those who may have friends who are representatives to reach out to them lovingly during this time. But let’s give the legislature a little time to catch their breath.”

Though both organizations have stressed their members to communicate their opposition politely with lawmakers, Costa Howard says these organizations have stoked fear, amplifying fringe voices.

Since introducing the bill, Costa Howard said she’s been inundated with hostile calls and emails, even including a letter she perceived as a death threat. The anonymous letter, addressed to Costa Howard at her legislative office in Lombard, referenced HB2827 — the Homeschool Act — contained five lines:

“It’s all over the country. We all know.
It starts here and must end here.
If we have to break the 6th Commandment, so be it.
God said “Do Not Kill,” but also said “Smite thine enemy.”
We’re watching ….” –Anonymous

Costa Howard turned the letter over to police, who she says are investigating it in her home district.

The bill has also drawn opposition from minority communities. Pastor Chris Butler testified against the bill last week when the amended version came before the House Education Policy Committee.

“I am here today as somebody who grew up in Chicago public schools,” Butler said. “I am here today sitting next to somebody who taught in Chicago’s public schools. And we too have grown up, and we too have something to say about the education that we received, and it is why people in our generation have stepped up and said, we must do something different.”

He argued that any regulation would impede minority families from homeschooling to escape failing public schools and encouraged opponents to continue filing witness slips opposing the bill and speaking out against it.

Editorial boards at The Chicago Tribune and The Wall Street Journal have also opposed the bill. The Tribune said the bill “overreaches,” while the Journal raised privacy concerns about the information homeschool families could be required to provide on the forms.

The anonymous letter to Costa Howard was postmarked from a mail distribution site in Kearny, New Jersey, on March 24 — three days after the editorial appeared in the Wall Street Journal. The return address was listed simply as The Rancher, East Coast.

Under Illinois law, threatening a public official is a Class 3 felony. The Lombard Police Department declined to comment, but did provide, under a Freedom of Information Act request, a copy of the report that contained the typewritten, unsigned letter.

Costa Howard also alerted the Illinois State Police regarding the letter. An ISP spokesman said the agency assesses potential threats and determines needed actions based on the findings of the assessment, which may include further consultation and, if necessary, makes recommendations to enhance security.

Despite the vitriolic communication, Costa Howard said she is pressing forward because of those who’ve also reached out to say they were victims of inadequate homeschooling and want more protections in the law.

The bill missed a procedural deadline on Friday for non-budget bills to clear their chamber of origin. But lawmakers can request an extension, which Costa Howard has done.

“The one thing I’ve learned about Springfield is don’t ever count something out,” she said.

Rep. Amy Elik, R-Alton, disagreed.

“This bill was doomed from the beginning,” Elik said from the House floor Friday after Costa Howard made a brief speech about the bill.

Costa Howard says changes to the bill have already been made to address concerns, and that she’s working on more. The amendment that passed a House committee on Wednesday, April 9, provided more specific details for the declaration form, ensured that an online version would be available, and clarified that a truancy investigation would be required to compel families to turn over homeschooling portfolios.

Another change addresses concerns from private schools, which had opposed having to provide a list of students to the Illinois State Board of Education. Under the change, private schools would only need to verify a student’s attendance record if asked in a truancy investigation.

Costa Howard said she remains open to negotiations on the bill’s finer details but believes passing new safeguards is critical to protect children from parents who claim they are homeschooling, but don’t follow through.

“I do not back down from bullies,” Costa Howard said. “And there are victims that have reached out to me constantly thanking me because it has also allowed them to raise their voices and feel that they could speak out about the experiences they’ve had as well.”

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.

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SPRINGFIELD — Law enforcement officers would no longer be allowed to search a vehicle or detain a driver who is over age 21 based solely on the smell of burnt cannabis in the vehicle under a bill that passed Thursday in the Illinois Senate.

Senate Bill 42, sponsored by Sen. Rachel Ventura, D-Joliet, is a response to a September 2024 Illinois Supreme Court decision that held the smell of burnt cannabis alone was insufficient to establish probable cause for searching a vehicle without a warrant.

In a separate opinion from December, however, the court ruled the odor of raw cannabis coming from a vehicle is sufficient evidence to provide officers with probable cause for a search because the smell suggests cannabis is not being transported in an odor-proof container as required by state law.

Both of those decisions stemmed from Illinois’ landmark legislation, passed in 2019, legalizing adult use of recreational marijuana statewide.

The Senate bill calls for repealing one requirement in that law — that cannabis in a vehicle be kept in an “odor-proof” container, but it continues to require the cannabis be kept in a “sealed or reusable and child-resistant container that is inaccessible.”

“I want to be very clear that I encourage every driver to drive sober at all times,” Ventura said on the Senate floor. “This is directing law enforcement to take into the totality of the circumstances.”

But opponents of the bill said the proposed policy made no sense from a law enforcement standpoint.

“We would never, ever ask a police officer to disregard the odor of alcohol when they pull a car over,” said Sen. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet. “Why on earth would we ask a police officer to disregard the odor of cannabis? At a minimum, they should have the duty to ensure that the driver is not impaired.”

The bill passed 33-20 and now heads to the House for consideration.

Bill extends press protections to university-based public media

The Illinois Senate passed legislation Thursday that would extend press protections to public media outlets, including NPR and PBS affiliates, that are operated by Illinois colleges and universities.

Senate Bill 1988, sponsored by Sen. Dave Koehler, D-Peoria, would also allow employees and contributors to seek judicial relief if they believe their rights have been violated.

Many public colleges and universities operate public broadcasting stations, a category of stations that were once referred to as “educational broadcasting.” In some cases, however, there have been complaints that university officials exercised powerful editorial control over those stations, especially regarding stories and material critical of the universities or their leadership.

The bill declares that all media produced at a state-sponsored institution of higher learning is a “public forum for expression by the employees producing the media” and that it “shall not be subject to prior review by public officials” of the institution.

Koehler did not cite any specific instances of university censorship or prior restraint at any Illinois stations, but he said those outlets should have the same protections from government censorship and restraint that other media outlets have.

“Public media plays an essential role in informing our communities,” Koehler said in a statement. “Ensuring their independence, accountability and trust is upheld is vital to democracy.”

The bill passed 36-19and now goes to the House.

Safe gun storage requirements advance in General Assembly

Illinois senators passed legislation Thursday that would require gun owners to keep their weapons securely stored so they are not accessible to minors.

Known as the Safe Guns Storage Act, Senate Bill 8, sponsored by Sen. Laura Ellman, D-Naperville, would require any firearms owner to store their firearm in a secured, locked container in any location where a minor or at-risk person could otherwise access the firearm.

The bill would also allow local law enforcement agencies to revoke a person’s Firearm Owner’s Identification card if they fail on two or more occasions to report a lost or stolen firearm within 48 hours.

“The sooner a firearm is reported lost or stolen, the more likely it is that law enforcement can investigate and recover that firearm before it’s used to commit a crime,” Ellman said.

Sen. Neil Anderson, R-Andalusia, took issue with law enforcement being granted the ability to revoke a person’s FOID card. He said that aspect of the bill would not be consistent with the 2023 United States v. Rahimi Supreme Court case, which ruled a person’s firearm owner identification can be temporarily revoked if a court determines they are a threat to public safety when in possession of a firearm.

Ellman disagreed. She said that the case did not exclude law enforcement from being able to revoke a person’s FOID card.

The bill passed on a vote of 33-19 and goes to the House.

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.

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SPRINGFIELD — The Illinois House took its first step Monday in passing legislation responding to proposed actions by the Trump administration.

The House voted 67-39 to advance House Bill 3637, which would put new protections in state law to safeguard health care licenses for providers who offer abortion cares. It also guarantees continued access to abortion medication even if the medication’s approval is rescinded by the federal Food and Drug Administration.

“We know that Project 2025 has called for the revoking of the FDA approval for medication abortion drugs, and we cannot wait to react after the fact,” Rep. Dagmara Avelar, D-Romeoville, said.

Under the bill, if the FDA ends approval for a drug, health care providers in Illinois will be allowed to continue providing the medication so long as the World Health Organization recommends it. Democrats fear the Trump administration may take action that makes critical medications, including those for abortion, inaccessible.

The WHO has “experienced health care providers as well so I’m confident on what they put out with regards to safety of drugs,” Avelar said.

The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled last year that a group suing to revoke FDA authorization for an abortion drug lacked standing.

Rep. Bill Hauter, R-Morton, argued the legislation sets a dangerous precedent for health care regulation.

“There has to be some safety mechanisms, whether they be in the abortion clinic or with abortion medications,” Hauter said. “Do not reject the authority of the U.S. federal Food and Drug Administration. This is an important safety mechanism. This is unprecedented in my mind.”

Pritzker’s direct college admission plan

The House voted 102-2 on Monday to advance House Bill 3522, which would create a direct admission program that applies students for admission at most Illinois public colleges and universities at once, bypassing college application fees.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and University of Illinois Chicago would not be included in the program.

Read more: Senate Democrats champion program to streamline Illinois college applications

The plan was proposed by Gov. JB Pritzker.

Students would have to “opt-in” to take part in the program and provide their contact information and GPAs to the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. The commission would then apply admission criteria from each university to find out at which universities the student qualifies for admission.

No coverage caps on general anesthesia

Hauter also is the sponsor of HB1141, which unanimously passed the House floor Monday. The bill would require all private insurance companies to cover the costs of medically necessary general anesthesia for the entire duration of a patient’s medical procedure.

“Patients have no control over the length of their surgery,” he said. “Physiologists have no control, or little control, and surgeons oftentimes have no control when they run into complications, abnormal anatomy or even malfunctioning equipment.”

The bill would ensure insurance companies can’t deny lengthy coverage in Illinois and continue the state’s status quo, Hauter said.

Blue Cross Blue Shield recently threatened to set a cap on the duration of medically necessary anesthesia in Missouri, New York and Connecticut in late 2024. After receiving nationwide backlash on the decision, the company changed course and never set a cap.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIJ_p_vDx6g?si=bRwqClLCfR6_Irpz]

Student teacher stipend bill approved

A bill passed through the House Monday on a 78-23 vote that would allow student teachers to receive a stipend.

Student teaching is part of the requirements for a teaching license in Illinois.

Read more: Capitol Briefs: House OKs program for student teacher stipends – but not the funding for it

The proposal passed the House in 2024 but didn’t become law.

The bill states eligible student teachers can be given “up to $10,000 per semester for two semesters” in educator preparation programs. Licensed cooperating teachers at public schools or early childhood education centers could separately get $2,000 per semester.

“We are in a dire situation, and we need teachers,” Rep. Katie Stuart, D-Edwardsville, said Monday on the House floor. “This is a barrier for those seeking licensure. It’s an expensive barrier to have to do your student teaching completely unpaid. This goes back to the history of the sexist nature of the fact that teachers tend to be overwhelmingly female.”

The bill’s main sponsor, Rep. Barbara Hernandez, D-Aurora, said she’s aiming to get $10 million appropriated from the budget for this bill, but she’d prefer around $60 million.

In 2024, Hernandez pushed for a $68 million appropriation for the proposal but admitted at the time the bill was unlikely to receive that funding.

Read more: Pritzker calls $55.2B budget ‘responsible and balanced’ – but warns Trump policies could upend it

Rep. Fred Crespo, D-Hoffman Estates, warned that Pritzker said budget negotiations were going to be strict this year.

“You can ask for everything, you can’t have it all,” Crespo said. “We need to start prioritizing what we want; and at the end of the day, taxpayers are going to pay for this. And at this rate, we’re just going to run out of taxpayers’ dollars to spend.”

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.

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The federal government has revoked the visas of some international students studying at universities across Illinois, but college administrators are sharing few details, including how many students have been impacted.

A spokesperson for the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign this week confirmed that some of its students are affected, but did not disclose a number. U of I ranks sixth nationally in the size of its international student body at over 15,000.

“Out of student privacy concerns, we are not sharing specific information, but we are working directly with affected students to help them connect with appropriate resources and understand their options,” said Robin Kaler, a university spokesperson. Kaler declined to provide more details, though multiple sources familiar with the situation at U of I, who asked that their names not be used because they are not authorized to speak on the matter, say the number of students whose visas have been revoked is at least several dozen — and likely growing.

The revocations are part of a broader federal crackdown playing out on campuses across the country. International students have faced abrupt visa cancellations in recent weeks, as the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration dragnet ensnares college students, federal officials claim have violated visa rules, though the reasons for the revocations are not always made clear. In many cases, students have also lost their status in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, SEVIS, which allows them to legally stay in the U.S. while enrolled in school.

Across its vast network of public and private colleges and universities, Illinois hosts one of the largest international student populations in the nation, ranking fifth, with more than 55,000 international students, according to a 2024 Open Doors report.

A spokesperson for Gov. JB Pritzker’s office said it has been in “close touch” with both public and private university leaders across the state but declined to share any information about how many students have been affected — or whether it even knows. The spokesperson said Pritzker’s office is deferring to the universities to provide data on what is “an incredibly fluid situation.”

Ed Yohnka, a spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, said the lack of transparency from both federal officials and universities raises serious concerns about accountability and democratic oversight. It also makes it difficult for advocacy groups like his to provide a meaningful response to affected students.

“One of the things we often think about when we think about the First Amendment, or we think about free speech is that I can’t speak freely about what the government’s doing if I don’t know they’re doing it. I can’t actually exercise my constitutional right to participate, criticize and critique the government if, in fact, the government acts in such an opaque way that I can’t know what the heck they’re doing,” he said.

“And, so I think that’s why, if the federal government won’t share this information — if they’re trying to, sort of, just sneak one by here — this is where it gets incredibly important for universities to at least give some sort of number, some sort of range, to say that people in their community are being impacted and affected by these reckless and unlawful government policies.”

Many schools are citing privacy laws, such as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), as to why they cannot disclose information about student visas.

SIU professor William Freivogel said that while the FERPA bars university disclosure of a student’s visa status unless the student gives written permission, the university should release anonymized data — without student names or identifying information.

“If the university is concerned that a student is losing the[ir] visa without the government presenting adequate reasons, the university can ask the student if it can disclose the information,” said Freivogel, who specializes in media law. “Presumably the governor’s office, if concerned about the situation statewide, could try to collect information in the same way — asking students if they want to waive their FERPA rights so that people can get a better picture of what is happening statewide and nationwide.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in late March that student visas are being revoked because select international students came to the U.S. to study, but instead engaged in “activist movements that are disruptive and undermine universities,” through protests on campus, specifically those that “are supportive of movements that run counter to the foreign policy of the United States.” That includes those calling for support of the Palestinian people and a ceasefire in Gaza, although it is unclear what the U.S. considers to be “movements that run counter to the foreign policy of the United States.”

On Wednesday, April 9, the U.S. said it will begin monitoring immigrants’ social media pages for antisemitism.

DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said, “Anyone who thinks they can come to America and hide behind the First Amendment to advocate for antisemitic violence and terrorism — think again.”

Under this new directive, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will consider social media content that indicates an immigrant “endorsing, espousing, promoting, or supporting antisemitic terrorism, antisemitic terrorist organizations, or other antisemitic activity as a negative factor in any USCIS discretionary analysis when adjudicating immigration benefit requests” — which may lead to visa revocation and the inability to be reinstated.

Happening on campuses across the state

University officials in Illinois have not disclosed the reasons that their students have lost their visas, and in some cases said they don’t even know themselves.

Southern Illinois University Carbondale reported one student with a revoked visa in late March but has since declined to comment on whether additional students have been affected.

After the initial confirmation, an SIU spokesperson told a reporter it would “no longer confirm or share information” and is “devoting our resources and energies to supporting our international students.”

Meanwhile, SIU Edwardsville has confirmed that eight students, including three undergraduates and five graduate students, lost their visa status earlier this week.

A Northern Illinois University spokesperson confirmed Thursday that five international students there had lost their visas.

SIU Carbondale reported 875 international students for the fall of 2024, a 2.5% increase from the year prior, while NIU enrolled roughly 970 international students. As of spring 2025, SIU Edwardsville had 825 international students representing 69 countries.

The University of Chicago student newspaper, the Chicago Maroon, reported Wednesday that three current students and four recent graduates had lost their visas. International students at the University of Chicago make up nearly a quarter of its student body of roughly 16,000.

As university leaders try to balance student concerns, fears of retaliation in an increasingly fraught political climate and growing demands for transparency, some say they feel left in the dark. And they worry the lack of transparency could conceal the full scope of the federal government’s actions against international students nationwide.

“What is deeply distressing about the news — that an international student’s visa was revoked — is the chilling silence around it, which only adds to the sense that we are powerless in the face of multiple attacks on the very existence of universities as places of learning, questioning and nurturing the next generation,” said Jyotnsa Kapur, a professor in cinema and media studies and the director of the University Honors Program at SIU Carbondale.

Kapur said international students fear jeopardizing their education and citizenship status — and want the school to provide stronger backing.

“Students want the upper administration to show support for international students — not just send cautionary notes,” said Kapur, referring to the email sent out by the university to its international student body on March 28.

“I had a couple of students in my office — they don’t want their names to be known — but they told me that there is absolute alarm about what can happen. One student was taking an after-dinner walk and a car just sat there with its lights on for 15 minutes. The student was actually afraid they may be picked up by ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] like the Tufts student,” Kapur said.

Questioning the legality of these actions

Illinois state Rep. Katie Stuart, chair of the House Higher Education Committee, said she’s heard “lots of stories of visas being revoked” but also had no concrete numbers about the impact across Illinois.

“I think it would be helpful to put together a briefing for legislators to understand what the different institutions are doing to protect students because ultimately that’s our goal,” said Stuart, a Democrat whose district includes SIU Edwardsville. “But the answer really is — right now — we don’t know for sure what’s going on.”

Illinois Sen. Dale Fowler, a Republican whose district includes SIU Carbondale, also said he did not have any sense of the scope of the situation. “I would love to know for sure,” he said.

Lawyers and legal scholars have begun to question the legality of these actions from the federal government, on international student visas.

These uncharted legal waters — coupled with the looming threat of losing federal funding — have effectively pushed many U.S. colleges into a state of silence and compliance with the federal government.

Lauren Aronson, a clinical professor at the University of Illinois College of Law and director of its Immigration Law Clinic, said she is particularly worried about the university’s large population of students from China, who she believes are becoming a target.

“The purpose is xenophobia and racism — it’s about punishing countries that don’t fall in line,” she said.

Aronson said it’s her understanding that some of the students impacted haven’t participated in protests and don’t have criminal records.

“I’m hugely concerned,” she said. “The thing that is to me the most nefarious is the fear that is being instilled now into every international student, as there isn’t necessarily rhyme or reason about who will be targeted.”

Some SIU students have started to raise concerns to not only their administrators, but to their peers as well.

At a student government meeting on April 2, SIU student Dustin Kinney asked what they are doing for the safety and protection of international students and other marginalized groups on campus.

“I just thought it was important to mention, because there are students on this campus who are deathly scared of legal and academic retaliation. Or, in the instance of international students, having their visas revoked,” said Kinney. “Friends of mine are too scared to even come to things like USG meetings because of the revocations happening nationwide and at SIU.”

This story was produced for Capitol News Illinois through the Saluki Local Reporting Lab, supported by grant funding from the Pulitzer Center, the Illinois Press Foundation and the SIU Foundation.

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.

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SPRINGFIELD — Gov. JB Pritzker vowed Tuesday that Illinois will remain a “stable” trading partner with nations around the world, despite President Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs that have disrupted global markets.

“Look, there are a lot of uncertainties at the moment, a lot of instability. There’s no doubt,” Pritzker said. “But this is a stable state. This is a state that thrives on certainty and allows our businesses to do well. And so we look forward to maintaining that status.”

Pritzker was responding to questions from reporters in his Statehouse office after signing a “memorandum of understanding,” or MOU, regarding trade between Illinois and the United Kingdom. MOUs are nonbinding agreements that outline how the parties intend to work together.

The signing ceremony in the governor’s office was largely ceremonial because terms of the MOU were originally agreed to during Pritzker’s trade mission to the U.K. in 2023.

“This action will inspire greater dialogue, cooperation and innovation on issues of critical importance to both of our nations, from climate change to infectious disease controls to sustainable agriculture,” Pritzker said. “It will strengthen our existing lines of trade and investment while expanding into new ventures in each of our emerging high growth sectors, advanced manufacturing, life sciences, finance, clean energy and beyond.”

Joining in the ceremony was U.K. Consul General Richard Hyde, who said he sees particular opportunities for Illinois to work with the U.K. on the development of smaller-scale nuclear power generation, where the British firm Rolls-Royce has been a leader.

“Excuse me for lobbying governor, and I promised you I wouldn’t, but you know, Illinois has adopted a standard and definition of small and small-modular reactors, which we think is a little old fashioned,” he said. “We’d love to open it up, like other states are doing around you, so that Rolls-Royce can come and bring their technology into Illinois and drive forward small-modular reactors and more decarbonization, a more safe nuclear power to your state.”

In 2024, according to the governor’s office, Illinois exported more than $2.6 billion worth of goods to the U.K., making it the state’s eighth-largest export partner. Exports from Illinois include chemicals, computer products and manufactured and fabricated metal products. British firms, meanwhile, employ about 96,000 people in 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.

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Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul joined another multistate lawsuit against the Trump administration, this time seeking to block the termination of nearly $12 billion worth of public health grants to states.

Raoul was part of a coalition of 24 state attorneys general and governors who filed the lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for terminating the grants.

The Illinois Department of Public Health announced March 26 that HHS was pulling back $477 million in grant funding that previously had been approved for Illinois. That included $125 million that was earmarked to support laboratory operations in 97 local health departments as well as $324 million for future work to prevent and treat infectious diseases in Illinois.

The suit, filed in federal court in Rhode Island, argues that Congress appropriated those funds in various pandemic-related spending bills, and the administration’s decisions to terminate the grants violated the federal Administrative Procedures Act.

“Illinois and states across the nation rely on federal grants to provide state public health services that protect our children and residents from serious diseases or health crises,” Raoul said in a statement. “The abrupt termination of this funding that impacts millions of American lives is both callous and unlawful.”

Since the start of the second Trump administration in January, Raoul has joined numerous multistate lawsuits seeking to block various executive orders and policy initiatives. Those include Trump’s efforts to halt the recognition of birthright citizenship; to freeze the distribution of federal funds previously appropriated by Congress; to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, and to terminate the employment of tens of thousands of federal employees.

U.S. Department of Education rescinds millions allocated to Illinois

The Illinois State Board of Education said this week the Trump administration has decided to “claw back” more than $77 million in federal pandemic relief funds that had previously been approved for Illinois but not yet spent.

Those funds represent the final portion of more than $7.8 billion in school-related pandemic relief funds  allocated to Illinois. ISBE said in a statement that it  made commitments to distribute those funds to various grantees, but some of the grantees had asked for and received extensions on the deadline to actually spend the funds, “to account for supply chain issues, staffing shortages, and other delays due to the pandemic.”

On March 28, however, ISBE said the federal agency revoked those extensions, effectively taking back any funds that had not yet been spent.

“This decision is a devastating blow to the students and schools that were relying on those approved funds to provide critical services,” State Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders said in a statement. “School districts depend on stability in funding to plan effectively and ensure continuity of services for students. The abrupt reversal of this extension disrupts stability and jeopardizes essential programs that support students’ learning recovery.”

The U.S. Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for an explanation of its decision.

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.

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Gov. JB Pritzker wrapped up a four-day trip to Mexico City on Wednesday, hopeful a trade mission to Mexico will yield new economic development in Illinois, even as tariffs threaten the stability of the United States’ global trade.

Speaking to reporters on a call Wednesday, Pritzker outlined a series of meetings he had with Mexican business leaders exploring setting up new operations in Illinois.

But Pritzker’s trip concluded just as Trump was set to announce new tariffs on goods and countries around the world.

“Here in Mexico, there is deep concern,” Pritzker said. “Let’s start with just the concern that the tariffs seem so broad-based and not well negotiated or thought out that they will potentially destroy some businesses in Mexico that U.S. companies rely upon.”

Pritzker said Mexican officials told him and others in Illinois’ 70-person delegation that businesses need stability and certainty about America’s trade policy.

“Over the past few days, I’ve heard a consistent message from Mexican public officials and business leaders and the business owners that the U.S. federal government must reestablish stability and consistency in the U.S.-Mexico relationship,” Pritzker said.

Pritzker acknowledged tariffs could hurt Illinois’ business recruitment efforts as well.

“The uncertainty that we’ve heard over and over again in the discussions with our Mexican counterparts is going to lead to them pulling back,” Pritzker predicted about the tariffs.

Even existing Illinois businesses such as auto manufacturers Ford, Stellantis and Rivian will be harmed by tariffs on auto parts, the governor argued. President Donald Trump is hoping the tariffs will encourage businesses to set up more operations in the United States to avoid the tariffs.

Pritzker said tariffs can be effective when they’re “targeted” to balance out trade deficits, but the wide scope of Trump’s plan will just end up costing Americans more and injecting more uncertainty into businesses.

“When you talk about raising tariffs, to say you’re going to put a tariff on everything from a country doesn’t take into account that you’re trying to have some specific outcomes,” Pritzker said. “Not to raise costs and inflation on American families, but rather to perhaps equalize trade deficits. And you can do that with, again, a targeted focus on a product or a set of products.”

Pritzker signed a cooperation agreement with Mexico state Gov. Delfina Gómez Álvarez on Monday that emphasizes the strong ties between Illinois and Mexico and encourages cooperation on key industries for both governments in areas such as manufacturing, agriculture and finance.

Illinois has had a long relationship with Mexico in the years since Gov. Jim Thompson signed the first bilateral agreement between the state of Illinois and state of Mexico in 1990, which was reaffirmed by Gov. Pat Quinn in 2013.

“I’ve made international trade missions a central part of my economic mission” –JB Pritzker

Mexico was Illinois’ second-largest export market in 2024 with $32 billion worth of goods being sent to the country. Another $19 billion worth of Mexican goods came to Illinois that year, making the country Illinois’ third-largest import market.

Latinos have also been the state’s fastest-growing population in recent decades — up 45% since 2000, according to research by the University of Illinois Chicago.

The Illinois delegation met with energy companies interested in establishing production facilities in Illinois and a retail business trying to grow their presence in Mexican American communities, among others, Pritzker said.

Pritzker’s trip to Mexico City is the latest international economic development trip the governor has taken since he took office in 2019. Other trips have included Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom.

“I’ve made international trade missions a central part of my economic mission,” Pritzker said. “It is part of my job as governor to be the chief marketing officer for Illinois and to pitch companies and investors on why Illinois is the best state in the U.S. to do business in.”

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.

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SPRINGFIELD — Intellectual and developmental disability service organizations are bracing for potential cuts to Medicaid and Medicare from the federal government under congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump.

About 3.9 million Illinoisans are enrolled in Medicaid. Of that total, 44% of Medicaid recipients are children, 9% are seniors and 7% are adults with disabilities, according to the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services.

“We’re very concerned. We don’t see what the path is right now,” Illinois Association of Rehabilitation Facilities CEO Josh Evans CEO said. “And so our mission is to continue to educate our members of Congress that this is not just a program that is ripe with payments, it’s serving people.”

IARF is an association of community-based providers that serve children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and serious mental illnesses in Illinois. Community providers focus on inclusion in a smaller community that offers more independence when providing care and some community providers help their residents find employment.

“I’m going to do whatever it is that I can do, but I can’t come up with $8 billion to keep a federal program going in my state,” Gov. JB Pritzker said in an interview with The Contrarian last week. “I can spend hundreds of millions of dollars to try to provide free healthcare for people who are most acute, but people are going to die because of what they’re doing.”

Prtizker proposed increased funding in the developmental disabilities division at the Department of Human Services, DHS, in his proposed 2026 fiscal year budget. This would include funding to continue placements of individuals who qualify and want to live in community-based settings and for new placements under a 2011 federal court order the state has struggled to comply with.

Read more: Federal judge rejects Illinois’ bid to end court oversight of disability programs | Illinois faces backlash over bid to end oversight of disability services

The Ligas Consent Decree requires states to provide care options in integrated community settings for Illinoisans with intellectual and developmental disabilities who request community-based services.

Despite Trump’s claim that he would not make cuts to Medicaid, congressional Republicans’ budget resolution would almost certainly result in shrinking funding for the program.

Read more: Pritzker calls $55.2B budget ‘responsible and balanced’ – but warns Trump policies could upend it | State lawmakers brace for possible federal cuts to Medicaid

Trump has vowed not to cut Medicaid benefits, but he has also said his administration will go after “waste and fraud” and cited tens of billions of “improper payments” in entitlement spending as the target for trims.

“You need to be careful in terms of how you’re looking at Medicaid, whether it’s focused on ways you can try to eliminate fraud, abuse and improper payments, which we all support, by the way, (but) major substantive changes to Medicaid will have a downstream impact on disability services,” Evans said.

Service providers worry the budget cuts proposed in a United States House budget resolution could jeopardize access to medical care for people with disabilities in Illinois and across the United States who rely on Medicaid. The budget proposal calls for $2 trillion in budget cuts, making it likely that Medicaid and Medicare will be impacted, Evans said. All 14 Illinois Democratic House members of Illinois’ congressional delegation voted against the resolution.

“I think some people assume that the cut automatically equals cost savings, but that isn’t necessarily the case,” said Kelly Berardelli, CEO of southwest suburban-based disabilities nonprofit Sertoma Star Services. “Just because the funding is cut doesn’t mean the need is gone, and a lot of people we serve are from the most vulnerable populations, so they’re going to still need services and supports.”

Sertoma Star Services serves more than 1,500 children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the Chicago area and Northwest Indiana. The organization receives most of its funding from Medicaid, and many of the people using their services rely on Medicaid for access to care.

“Any cuts to Medicaid have the potential to reduce the quality of life for the people we serve,” Berardelli said.

Evans agreed.

“Disability services in Illinois are primarily exclusively funded through Medicaid,” he said. “There’s no private pay, there’s very little to no Medicare. It’s all Medicaid.”

If access to community-based care is slashed by Medicaid cuts, people will seek care through institutionalized facilities, which tend to be large facilities run by the state with a focus on medical care, or in some cases, be hospitalized. This could cause Illinois to further violate the Ligas Consent Decree.

According to Berardelli, people with intellectual and developmental disabilities living at home could lose access to respite care if Medicaid funding is decreased in Illinois. Respite care is temporary care from a professional who is not the recipient’s primary caregiver, which is usually a couple of hours in a day or week.

More than half of those who receive care from Sertoma Star Services live with a family member over the age of 55, making the threat to respite care particularly concerning, Berardelli said. If these people cannot get respite care, they may not be able to live at home and will have to be placed in institutionalized facilities, more full-time care away from home.

While some may seek placements at community providers, there are already long wait times and a shortage of community providers of care for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

“Cuts to Medicaid would, I think, inevitably increase that waiting list,” Berardelli said. “Progress has been made over the past several years, and we would definitely see that progress reversed if there were cuts to Medicaid.”

Behavioral health services would also be impacted as Medicaid helps both to fund service providers in addition to insurance coverage for services such as mental health care and addiction treatment.

“The majority of our member organizations who provide behavioral health services are straight Medicaid,” IARF senior vice president of behavioral health policy and advocacy Emily Miller said. “Very few accept private insurance and so you would decimate the community with these drastic cuts that are being proposed to the Medicaid program.”

Cutting federal funding would also cause many health industries to compete with one another for funding. If there is a more limited pool of funding for health provider programs, not every specialized program would get the funding they need.

In the state fiscal year that ended in June, Illinois received over $20 billion in federal Medicaid funding, which made up about 62% of the total funding for Medicaid programs in Illinois, according to HFS.

“If there’s a major change where we see a dramatic loss of dollars, that means we’re going to have to be lobbying against one another in the healthcare and human services space for a more limited amount of resources,” Evans said. “We cannot be put in that position.”

Erin Drumm is a graduate student in journalism with Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, and a fellow 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 license.

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SPRINGFIELD — Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and 20 other state attorneys general are asking a federal judge to immediately halt President Donald Trump’s efforts to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education.

In a motion filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, the coalition of Democratic attorneys general are seeking a preliminary injunction to block the mass firing of half the agency’s employees, which Trump ordered March 11, as well as the transfer of student loan management and special education services to other federal agencies.

“States, including Illinois, are already feeling the impact of the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle the Department of Education,” Raoul said in a statement late Monday. “Enrollment deadlines for Illinois public community colleges and universities approach in just a few short weeks, and the turmoil caused by the administration’s actions jeopardizes the futures of tens of thousands of Illinois students.”

The lawsuit was originally filed March 13, two days after the administration announced plans to eliminate half the agency’s workforce.

The motion for a preliminary injunction, however, was prompted by Trump’s March 20 executive order calling for the eventual closure of the department as well as his announcement the following day directing the Small Business Administration to take over processing of student loans while the Department of Health and Human Services would take over responsibility for administering special education programs.

“Ultimately, the Department of Education’s main functions can, and should, be returned to the States,” Trump said in the executive order.

But the attorneys general argue Trump is overstepping the power of the executive branch by dismantling a department established by Congress.

“No constitutional or statutory authority allows the President or the head of an agency to take actions that incapacitate core statutory functions of an agency that Congress created, or to transfer statutory duties to other agencies,” the states argued in their motion.

Raoul and the other attorneys general argue that states are already feeling the effects of Trump’s efforts to dismantle the agency.

In a statement attached as an exhibit in the original lawsuit, Illinois Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders said that since the March 13 announcement of mass layoffs, Illinois has been unable to access certain categories of federal funds “because no staff remain in the Department’s Office of State and Grantee Relations.”

Sanders noted in his statement that Illinois expects to receive about $794 million in federal Title I funds this year, money targeted to the state’s lowest-performing schools. It also expects to receive another $625 million in federal funds that help pay for services for students with disabilities.

The Department of Education also administers the federal Pell Grant program, which provides need-based financial aid for college students. In the 2023-24 academic year, according to state data, more than 225,000 students in Illinois received a total of more than $1 billion in Pell Grant assistance.

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 license.

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TAYLORVILLE — Voters must put pressure on congressional Republicans to oppose any budget bill that makes major cuts to services, according to U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

Lawmakers are set to return to Washington, D.C., this coming week, where they will begin a reconciliation process on a budget plan that Democrats worry will contain major cuts to Medicaid, Social Security and other federal programs.

But if just a handful of Republicans in either chamber oppose President Donald Trump’s preferred budget plan, Congress can likely block cuts to these programs, Durbin said at a news conference Thursday at a Taylorville hospital southeast of Springfield. He put pressure specifically on Illinois’ three Republican members of the House of Representatives.

“I hope they’ll come home as I have during this break and visit rural hospitals and hear first-hand from administrators and the people who work there what cutbacks in the Medicaid program mean for their communities,” Durbin said.

Democrats fear Republicans will lean on cuts to social safety net programs such as Medicaid to pass a budget plan that would extend more than $4 billion worth of tax cuts and help pay for Trump initiatives such as mass deportations.

Illinois covers about half of Medicaid costs for about 3.4 million people, or 1 in 4 residents, under the traditional program. Medicaid eligibility was expanded in 2010 by the Affordable Care Act to include more adults at higher income levels. Approximately 770,000 people in Illinois are covered under the expansion and the federal government pays 90% of the cost for that group.

Read more: State lawmakers brace for possible federal cuts to Medicaid

If Congress severely reduced that program, the state wouldn’t be able to make up the billions of dollars the federal government sends Illinois each year to cover the program, Gov. JB Pritzker said at a news conference Friday in Peoria.

“I believe that blood will be on their hands,” Pritzker said of Trump and Republicans. “People will lose their lives as a result of what they’re trying to do right now.”

Gov. JB Pritzker, a vocal critic of Donald Trump, speaks at a Rockford stop on his “Standing Up for Illinois” tour on March 21. Pritzker set up the multi-day tour to voice opposition to President Donald Trump and other federal Republicans. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)

Pritzker said the size of the tax cuts Republicans are seeking is so large they will be forced to dip into Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security to cover the cost. For Illinois, that could mean $8 billion worth of health insurance coverage could be at risk, the governor said.

“Donald Trump and Elon Musk and congressional Republicans, in their crusade to give an enormous, massive tax cut to the wealthiest people in the country, have put working Illinoisans and health care on the chopping block,” Pritzker said.

Durbin said the cuts could upend the Illinois health care industry as well.

“If we do substantial cuts on Medicaid, it could have an impact on individuals first and foremost, but certainly on the survival of clinics and hospitals around the nation, and in particular, in downstate Illinois,” Durbin said.

Cuts could limit services at health care facilities and could force some hospitals or medical centers to close as they lose Medicaid funding.

“The point is this: When you decide priorities for your future, and we’re making those decisions every single day in Washington, I think health care should be the highest priority,” Durbin said.

Democrats on tour

Both Pritzker and Durbin, the state’s top elected Democrats, spent the week touring Illinois, highlighting impacts the state could feel from action at the federal level alongside other Democratic members of Congress from Illinois. Durbin focused on Medicaid on stops at hospitals in Chicago and Taylorville while Pritzker discussed agriculture, Social Security, infrastructure and Medicaid at events in Urbana, Romeoville, Rockford and Peoria.

“If people stay home and don’t speak up about this, we will see people die as a result of the devastation that this will cause,” Pritzker said Thursday in Romeoville.

Both Democrats’ hopscotching around Illinois came days after Pritzker and Durbin found themselves on opposite sides of a spending bill in Congress.

Last week, Durbin voted for a spending plan to keep the government open through September, which angered many Democrats including Pritzker, who thought Senate Democrats should force a government shutdown as a roadblock to Trump’s agenda.

“It was a huge mistake,” Pritzker said Wednesday in Urbana. “I’ve made it very clear, lots of people made it very clear, that the people who voted for the (continuing resolution) in the Senate were wrong. Dead wrong.”

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., speaks to Chicago residents at Roseland Community Hospital on March 18. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)

But shutting down the government would have been worse and enabled Trump and Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency to continue dismantling parts of the federal government, Durbin said.

“I have never voted for a shut down and I didn’t last week,” Durbin said. “Do I think it’s right that we have an appropriations process that is not bipartisan? No, I don’t. And now we’re going into another one and I’ll just tell you this: I want to hold both Democrats and Republicans responsible to come up with a bipartisan approach to spending that makes sense.”

The public disagreement between the two Democrats comes as Durbin contemplates running for reelection in 2026. A litany of Illinois Democrats is rumored to be waiting in the wings, including Pritzker’s running mate, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton.

Durbin would only say that he will decide “soon.” The 80-year-old senator, who resides in Springfield, said “whether I’m still physically able, mentally able to deal with the issues,” are the top factors guiding his decision.

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 license.

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