Last week, I introduced the First Home Affordability Act to help working and middle-class families overcome the biggest barrier to homeownership today: upfront costs. Here in Illinois and across the country, housing prices have surged so sharply that more than 75 percent of homes on the market are unaffordable to a typical household, even for families who could manage a monthly mortgage. Too many families are locked out of homeownership not because they can’t budget responsibly, but because down payments and closing costs have been pushed out of reach. That prevents families from building equity, putting down roots, and achieving the stability that homeownership provides.

The First Home Affordability Act creates a refundable tax credit of up to $25,000 for first-time homebuyers, delivered over the first five years of ownership. The credit is targeted to middle-class families, based on local income levels, and limited to primary residences to support long-term ownership rather than speculation. The bill also supports the workers our communities rely on most. First responders, K-12 teachers, and child care workers would be eligible to receive the full credit in their first year, helping the people who serve our neighborhoods afford to live in them.

Homeownership should be within reach for families who work hard and play by the rules. I will keep fighting to lower barriers and give Illinois families a fair shot at buying their first home.

This week, I spoke out against President Trump’s reckless threats to impose new tariffs on U.S. allies for opposing his push to take Greenland. Let’s be clear about what this means: tariffs are taxes on Americans. They raise prices for working families and squeeze small businesses, and they are the opposite of what people were promised.

I’m already hearing from Illinois entrepreneurs, including some who supported President Trump, whose businesses are struggling under existing tariffs. Piling on new ones would only deepen the damage, driving up costs, slowing investment, and hurting workers here at home. Taxing Americans to fuel a personal geopolitical fixation is not economic policy. It is self-inflicted harm.

This approach is also deeply damaging to U.S. alliances. Threatening friends and partners over Greenland pushes them away from us and toward our adversaries. We are already seeing allies hedge their bets and pursue side deals that could weaken U.S. influence and competitiveness over the long term. That is how America loses leverage on the world stage. Strong leadership means diplomacy, cooperation, and protecting American families from higher costs, not alienating allies and destabilizing markets. I will continue calling out policies that hurt Illinois workers, weaken our economy, and undermine America’s standing in the world.

This week, I introduced the No Private Bounty Hunters for Immigration Enforcement Act as part of my ongoing fight to end the unchecked, unaccountable abuses already occurring at ICE. Recent fatal shootings and aggressive raids have sparked national outrage and made clear that current enforcement practices lack transparency, restraint, and meaningful oversight.

Instead of confronting these failures, the Trump administration has moved toward outsourcing core enforcement functions to private, profit-driven contractors, a move that would only worsen the accountability crisis. Handing surveillance and tracking to private bounty hunters creates dangerous incentives, shields misconduct from public view, and risks escalating the very abuses we are already witnessing.

My ACLU-endorsed legislation would ban DHS from contracting with private entities for civil immigration surveillance and tracking, end incentive-based payments, and require a rapid audit of existing contracts. At a moment when lives are at stake, we should be stopping abuses and restoring accountability, not privatizing enforcement and pushing it further into the shadows.