Miami’s “Impossible” Win and the Law That Dares DHS to Sue

How a pro-immigrant landslide in a Trump-won county and Illinois’ new anti-raid law hint at a map that isn’t as settled as it looks.

Dec 10, 2025

📌 NOTE FOR NEW READERS:
The 50501 Movement organizes peaceful action across all 50 states to defend democracy. 80,000+ subscribers strong and growing. If this resonates with you, hit subscribe for more.

TL;DR

Miami just elected Eileen Higgins, a Democrat, as mayor. The city’s first Democratic mayor in nearly 30 years and its first woman mayor ever in a city that sits inside Miami-Dade County, which Trump flipped in 2024 after decades of voting blue.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker just signed House Bill 1312, which bans civil immigration arrests in and around courthouses, extends protections around hospitals, campuses, and day cares, and lets people sue immigration officers who violate their constitutional rights.
Both moves are direct responses to Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown, one at the ballot box in a Republican-trending city, one through state law in a blue state.

Crowd gathered outside a courthouse at dusk with a blue banner reading ‘Not here, not anymore. Miami voters and Illinois law push back on Trump’s map,’ illustrating a story about Miami’s new Democratic mayor and Illinois’ law limiting federal immigration raids

For eight years, all the arrows pointed one way: Miami and Miami-Dade drifting right, powered by Trump’s gains with Hispanic voters.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton carried Miami-Dade by almost 30 points.

By 2024, Donald Trump won the county, the first Republican to do it in 36 years.

And then, in one night, Miami voters flipped the narrative.

Miami: A Trump-Flipped County Flips Back

Miami just elected Eileen Higgins as its new mayor.
She’s a 61-year-old Democrat and former county commissioner who:

Ran openly as a Democrat in an officially nonpartisan race,
Defeated Republican Emilio González, who was endorsed by Trump and backed by the Florida GOP, and,
Became the first woman and the first Democrat to lead the city in nearly 30 years.

Trump himself publicly backed González, and Florida Republicans treated Miami as proof their gains with Hispanic voters were permanent.

National outlets framed the contest as a referendum on Trump’s influence in a county he’d just flipped.

And still, Higgins won by about 19 points.

Miami sits in a county that:

Voted for Hillary Clinton by 29–30 points in 2016,
Narrowed sharply in 2020, and
Voted for Trump by double digits in 2024, after a “red wave” across Miami-Dade.

If you drew the trend line from 2016 to 2024, Miami shouldn’t be doing this. But voters just showed up otherwise.

Miami skyline with text overlay: ‘Miami showed up. A Trump-flipped county flips back. Miami just elected Eileen Higgins as its new mayor. Higgins won by about 19 points,’ highlighting a Democratic upset in Miami-Dade.

Running Toward Immigration, Not Away From It

Higgins didn’t run away from immigration. Instead, She ran toward it.

In a city where about 57% of residents are foreign-born, she centered immigrant families in her message talking about detention, TPS rollbacks, and humanitarian parole changes not as abstract “border” issues, but as things happening to people in Miami.

Coverage from outlets like the Guardian and AP note that she:

Criticized Trump’s detention policies and cuts to protections like TPS,
Made support for immigrant communities a core piece of her identity, and
Still won big in a city that voted for Trump in 2024.

One Republican lawmaker, Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, reportedly summed up the anxiety on her side this way:

“Hispanics married President Trump, but they are only dating the GOP.” AP News

This is an admission that voters who came to Trump are still movable when the consequences of policy show up in their neighborhoods.

Illinois Bets on the Constitution, Not Fear

While Miami voters were reshaping the map at the ballot box, Illinois was reshaping it in law.

In Chicago’s Little Village, a heavily Mexican-American neighborhood that has been on the front line of federal immigration raids, Gov. JB Pritzker signed HB 1312.

The law does three big things:

Bans civil immigration arrests in and around state courthouses
- Federal immigration officers can no longer carry out civil immigration arrests in Illinois courthouses or within 1,000 feet of them, except in narrow circumstances.
Extends protections to “sensitive” state-controlled spaces
- Hospitals, university campuses, community colleges, and licensed day cares are now required to adopt policies governing interactions with immigration agents and to protect personally identifiable information, including immigration status, with limited exceptions.
Creates a right to sue over abusive enforcement
- Illinois residents can sue people conducting civil immigration enforcement if they knowingly violate the Illinois or U.S. Constitution, giving residents a state-level tool to seek damages for rights violations.

Pritzker’s office framed the law as a “nation-leading response” to what it calls “lawless and aggressive immigration enforcement actions” under Trump.

Why Little Village?

Pritzker didn’t sign this bill in a safe, symbolic spot.
He signed it in Little Village, just weeks after Border Patrol and other federal agents conducted raids there that:

Detained at least seven people,
Included at least two city employees who are U.S. citizens, and
Prompted a Chicago alderman to describe the operations as “lawless” and an “utter disregard for our constitutional rights.”

You can feel those raids in the bill text: courthouses, hospitals, day cares, campuses, exactly the kinds of places where people had started to fear they were no longer safe to show up.

If you selected other, tell us in the comments:

How HB 1312 Dares DHS to Sue

The response from Trump’s Department of Homeland Security was immediate and very intentional.

In an emailed statement quoted by multiple outlets, including Capitol News Illinois and Notus, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said Pritzker:

“must be unfamiliar with the U.S. Constitution,”

and argued that:

“By signing this law, Pritzker violated the Supremacy Clause, his oath he took as governor to ‘support the Constitution of the United States.’”

That’s the legal heart of it:

The Supremacy Clause (Article VI) says federal law is “the supreme Law of the Land.”
Immigration enforcement is clearly a federal role.
But states have long-recognized power over their courts, schools, hospitals, and licensing.

HB 1312 doesn’t ban ICE or Border Patrol from Illinois. It says:

You don’t get to use our courthouses and other state-controlled spaces as hunting grounds and if you violate people’s rights while you’re here, we’re going to give them grounds to sue you.

Pritzker has been explicit that he expects lawsuits and is willing to fight this out in court.

“Graphic over courthouse steps reading: ‘HB 1312 doesn’t ban ICE or Border Patrol from Illinois. It says: you don’t get to use our courthouses and other state-controlled spaces as hunting grounds and if you violate people’s rights while you’re here, we’re going to give them grounds to sue you,’ summarizing Illinois’ new immigration enforcement law.”

From Miami-Dade to Springfield:
A Shared Rebellion

On the surface, Miami and Illinois look almost irrelevant:

A majority-Hispanic city inside a Trump-won county
versus
A deep-blue Midwestern state that advertises itself as a “welcoming state.”

But they’re both reacting to the same thing: Trump’s immigration crackdown and the way it feels when it lands in our neighborhoods.

Miami’s trajectory:

2016: Clinton + ~29 points in Miami-Dade
2024: Trump wins Miami-Dade, the first Republican to do so since 1988
2025: Miami elects a Democratic, pro-immigrant-rights mayor by almost 20 points

Illinois’ trajectory:

Longtime blue state that often worked around federal policy quietly, now passing a law that directly restricts where civil immigration arrests can occur and invites a Supremacy Clause test case.

For years the “map-story” said:

Hispanic voters who moved toward Trump in 2020 and 2024 would stay there,
Democratic officials would avoid direct constitutional showdowns on immigration, and
You couldn’t separate “support for Trump” from support for every tactic deployed in his name.

Those assumptions are now measurable and in places like Miami and Illinois, they’re already breaking.

Know someone trying to read the 2026 map? Send them this.

Two Very Different Risks, Similar Voter Bet

Higgins’ bet in Miami:

Voters can want order at the border and still reject tear gas, mass round-ups, and constant fear in their own neighborhoods.
If you talk about immigration as something happening to people in your city, a Trump-flipped county will listen.

She made that bet in a place national Democrats had basically written off and she won big.

Pritzker’s bet in Illinois:

Voters care about constitutional protections where they live more than they care about Trump’s framing of “law and order.”
People in Little Village and across Illinois will remember who put legal guardrails between them and the next wave of raids.

He wrote those guardrails into law, knowing Trump’s DHS would attack him for “violating the Constitution,” and signed it in the neighborhood that just lived through “lawless” raids.

Both are high-clarity, high-risk moves. Both assume voters are more complicated than the last eight years of takes have allowed.

What Miami and Illinois Tell Us About 2026

Zoom out a little more.

In New Jersey and Virginia, Democrats just won big gubernatorial races, Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia with strong margins and significant support from Latino and other nonwhite voters, according to exit-poll analyses from groups like CAWP and ABC.

Now add Miami and Illinois:

A Trump-flipped county just gave a Democrat a landslide mayoral win,
A Midwestern state just passed one of the toughest state-level constraints on civil immigration enforcement in the country.

That doesn’t mean “Trump is finished” or “Republicans are doomed.” It means:

Voters are starting to separate Trump the symbol from Trump-era policy,
and states are testing how far they can go to shield their residents without losing in court.

As of December 9, 2025, the old map, the one that said “Florida is red forever” and “blue states will just complain, not confront” isn’t matching the new behavior.

And when the map stops making sense, it usually means something is shifting underneath it, long before the cable-news graphics catch up.

Join The Community Conversation

What do you see in these two responses to Trump’s immigration agenda, one at the ballot box in a Republican-trending city, and one through legislation in a blue state?

Where do you think this tension is heading going into 2026? Drop your take in the comments so organizers, candidates, and neighbors can see it.

💙 THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE

Whether you’re a paid subscriber, free subscriber, or reading this for the first time, thank you.

This work exists because you keep showing up. You read, share, and comment to build community. You’re the kind of person who checks on your neighbors because you care.

Blue | The 50501 Movement | 80,000+ Subscribers Strong | fiftyfifty.one

Sources

Robin Gilmartin

Adding to all this is the Georgia state legislature race where the Democrat won even after they gerrymandered! Lots of great news. Thanks for the post and the boost this morning !

Expand full comment

2 replies

Bluesmurf

When we talk about taking back control of our Democracy, it has to start at the local level. Miami, FL turning over the Mayor’s seat to a blue candidate is exactly how we win. We are still under water in a lot of states, counties, municipalities, cities and communities… but we are making gains.

This site is very informative at just how many elected official seats we have gained and addresses how these elected officials can choose appointed officials in other important leadership positions to push out the MAGAs.

Engage in what is happening around you as it matters and will stop a complete authoritarian takeover of our country by rich people who have no use for us as we sit unemployed, homeless, ill, penniless, hungry, cold, and more.

7 more comments...

The 50501 Movement

Discussion about this post

Ready for more?