CHICAGO — In the fall, Democrats in Illinois were largely unified against President Donald Trump’s ramped-up Chicago-area immigration enforcement crackdown. Now the issue is being used as a political wedge in this spring’s Democratic primary races.

Perhaps nowhere has that been made clearer than in the race for the 40th Illinois House district representing parts of Chicago’s North and Northwest sides, where a veteran lawmaker backed by the Democratic Party of Illinois has blanketed neighborhoods with campaign fliers that tenuously tie an upstart progressive opponent to the federal immigration agents that wreaked havoc on the community.

“Some Washington politicians want to expand ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) in our community,” a mailer paid for by state Rep. Jaime Andrade’s campaign reads. “Miguel Alvelo-Rivera is standing with them,” it says in English. “Miguel Alvelo-Rivera supports them,” it says in Spanish.

Andrade’s opponent, the Chicago Teachers Union-endorsed Alvelo-Rivera, is not in favor of expanding ICE.

And the accusation in the mailer hinges in large part on Alvelo-Rivera’s ties to U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez, one of the most outspoken critics of ICE in Congress, who has called for the agency’s abolition and voted against legislation that increased immigration enforcement funding. Ramirez is the only member of Congress publicly backing Alvelo-Rivera.

The executive director of the worker organization Latino Union of Chicago, Alvelo-Rivera has been involved in rapid response efforts resisting ICE’s efforts in Chicago, supporters said.

Still, in an election season shaped by Trump’s immigration crackdown, ICE has become a political flashpoint — and a ready-made line of attack. In Illinois Democratic primaries, candidates up and down the ballot are seeking to tether opponents, however they can, to the politically unpopular federal agency.

In the race to head the Cook County Board, incumbent President Toni Preckwinkle accused her opponent, Chicago Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd, of being silent during Trump’s immigration raids. Reilly has said he wants to abolish “Trump’s ICE” and revert it to the way it operated a decade ago.

In the U.S. Senate race, a group supporting Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton released an ad asserting that U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi “sold us out,” citing, in part, a 2019 vote to provide ICE with additional funding and a vote last year to honor ICE and other law enforcement in the wake of the June attack in Boulder, Colo. on people honoring hostages taken from Israel as part of the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks. Krishnamoorthi in turn issued a statement citing his recent call for “not a single dollar more for (DHS Secretary) Kristi Noem, ICE, and her rogue agents.” The third candidate in the open Democratic primary, U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly, filed articles of impeachment against Noem, whose department oversees ICE and Border Patrol.

In the 40th House District race, a local campaign where neither candidate is a household name, the impression voters get from any one mailer or talking point could be even more important.

Asked about the mailers, Andrade of Chicago provided a written document showing the mailers trace a chain that he says backs up his claims: Congresswoman Ramirez supports Alvelo-Rivera; Ramirez has received campaign contributions from two California Democrats, U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia and House Democratic Chair Pete Aguilar; and those California lawmakers voted in 2024 for a resolution that included funding increases for parts of ICE. Ramirez voted against the measure.

“She supports Miguel, and people who support her voted for the bill,” Andrade said in Springfield last week.

Ramirez called it “laughable” to suggest that she “would be part of any of the Democrats that have supported anything related to ICE.”

“He has engaged in a dangerous disinformation campaign that harms our movement,” Ramirez said of Andrade. “Chicago politics are often contentious. We are not naive to this reality, especially Chicago politics, but there is a clear line between politics and dangerous propaganda.

“He can’t really cite anything, because it’s all vicious lies,” Ramirez said, speaking after a press conference in which she called for Andrade to apologize. Alvelo-Rivera also said the mailers were “defamation and lies.”

Andrade didn’t respond to follow-up questions over the phone or by email.

The clash underscores the high stakes of a race that has drawn national big-money interests for a district stretching from the border of Lincoln Park and Bucktown up toward Albany Park.

A federal super PAC funded by the sports betting company DraftKings, American Future, said it was spending at least $85,000 supporting Andrade, who had nearly $147,000 on hand at the start of the year. And Andrade is one of four Illinois statehouse candidates receiving support from a new group funded by the social media giant Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads, that spent more than $22,000 on digital ads and mail for him. That group is working with $750,000 from Meta, according to state campaign finance records.

Alvelo-Rivera had less than $32,000 to start the year, but then he received more than $72,000 from the Chicago Teachers Union PAC and $30,000 from the Illinois Federation of Teachers political committee this month.

Within the state, Andrade has also received tens of thousands of dollars through in-kind donations from the Democratic Party of Illinois and the House Democratic campaign arm, which is led by House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch. DPI spokesperson Gwen Pepin said in an emailed statement Tuesday that the mailers Alvelo-Rivera criticized were not “the Party’s mail piece, meaning we didn’t fund it or draft the message.”

But at last week’s press conference on the mailers, Andrade’s district’s Democratic state Sen. Graciela Guzmán, joined local Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez, 33rd, and Cook County Commissioner Jessica Vásquez in repeatedly admonishing Andrade for the mailers.

“I’m asking for a moment of better, because our voters are discerning. They will understand the issues,” Guzman said.

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—Tribune reporters Jack O’Connor and Adriana Pérez contributed.

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