As Gov. Pritzker declares an end to the public health emergency brought on by the pandemic and subsequent relief funds, four community-led efforts work to make sure their neighbors’ needs are still met.
As the Trump-era rule ends Thursday, Biden plans to enact strict immigration policies toward asylum seekers and send more troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Around 3,100 migrants are in temporary shelters, relying on donated clothes and food as Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson inherits the crisis. “We don’t have beds. Children are sleeping on the floor," one man said.
The plan comes after the city's short-notice rollout of a migrant shelter in neighboring Woodlawn sparked months of outrage. Officials will host a meeting on the plan Thursday.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot has said the city already doesn't have enough space for the migrants who are here — and the answer to problems at the border isn't busing people to Chicago.
The city is working to support the migrants, but officials said it's been difficult to plan when there is no communication from the states sending people here.
The Mural Movement started as a beautification project but has grown to provide solace and support for community members — generational or recently arrived.
Illinois Venezuelan Alliance cofounder Ana Gil Garcia explains why 25% of Venezuela’s population has left Venezuela and how Chicagoans are welcoming Venezuelan migrants.
A National Immigrant Justice Center lawsuit alleges that detained immigrants are being held in inhumane conditions, while Clay County misuses the money they receive from ICE to care for detainees.
With a high cost of living and no social safety net, undocumented seniors often depend on families and are at high risk of losing their homes. This is part three in a series with the Chicago Tribune on the growing population of undocumented seniors in Illinois.
The number of undocumented immigrants ages 65 and over in Illinois is set to grow exponentially. Advocates say it’s a crisis in the making. Injustice Watch and the Chicago Tribune teamed up to report on the challenges facing Illinois’ aging undocumented population.
A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by two Illinois counties hoping to keep their lucrative ICE detention contracts. Those contracts are now set to be phased out starting Jan. 1.
Officials in McHenry and Kankakee counties have sued the state to block implementation of a law that would require them to cancel their ICE detention contracts.
Some Afghan children at a Chicago shelter have hurt themselves or others, leaving workers overwhelmed. Employees say the shelter has never experienced this level of chaos and isn’t equipped to provide kids with services they need.
After photos of Border Patrol agents whipping Haitian asylum seekers were made public, immigrant advocates are calling for an end to Title 42 deportations.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed the Illinois Way Forward Act today, which will end immigrant detention in the state in 2022 and expand protections for immigrant communities.
Inaccessible and inconsistent, statistics publicly reported by the enforcement agency contribute to its systemic mishandling of COVID-19 — underscoring a clear need for greater oversight, researchers say.
Both President Biden and Illinois Gov. Pritzker have recently changed immigration policies to better protect undocumented families. But for one local father of five, those changes have not gone far enough.
A new exception to a Trump-era border policy has allowed some transgender people and other members of “vulnerable populations” to enter the United States and seek asylum.
The Midwest Immigration Bond Fund Coalition has raised more than $35,000 to bail out detained immigrants from Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Kentucky.
A bill passed Monday by the Illinois General Assembly would allow the Cook County public defender’s office to represent immigrants at the Chicago Immigration Court.
A class action lawsuit is pressuring the government to process freedom of information requests for critical immigration documents faster. However, immigrants and advocates worry that the recent changes are not enough.
The Illinois General Assembly passed a sweeping immigration bill that would close all immigrant detention centers in the state and severely restrict how local law enforcement can collaborate with federal immigration agents.
Hena Mansori, the head of the new immigration unit at the Cook County Public Defender's Office, offers advice for noncitizens who come into contact with the justice system.
In the midst of a housing crisis that has left immigrant renters among the most vulnerable, a group of immigrant punk rock musicians are fighting to stay at a commercial building they’ve called home for years.
Alderman Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez representing Chicago’s 33rd Ward speaks about Chicago as a Sanctuary City and it’s new Welcoming City Ordinance, which provides expanded protections to immigrants.
A group of congressional Democrats, led by U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” García of Illinois, is renewing the push for sweeping legislation that would dismantle many segments of the so-called prison-to-deportation pipeline.
After applying for deportation relief in a Chicago suburb, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico faces anti-immigration policies and bureaucratic delays.
Black Lives Matter protests and the growing movement to disband Nigeria’s controversial SARS police unit are driving urgent conversations on race and identity among people of the African diaspora.
During the day, immigrant teenagers attend high school. At night, they work in factories to pay debts to smugglers and send money to family. The authorities aren’t surprised by child labor. They’re also not doing much about it.
Allegations include guards attacking victims in camera “blind spots” and telling them that “no one would believe” them in ICE detention centers, which imprison about 50,000 immigrants each year at a taxpayer expense of $2.7 billion.
Vanessa Esparza-López, a supervising attorney with the National Immigrant Justice Center’s Immigrant Legal Defense Project, explains how the Supreme Court's ruling will impact DACA recipients.
The Supreme Court rejected President Trump's termination of DACA today. The policy has allowed over 825,000 immigrants to work and go to school in the United States since 2012.
Trump promised that information from DACA applications would not be sent to deportation agents. But internal emails show that ICE can access databases where that information is kept — and DHS decided not to tell Congress.
Local Assyrian leaders are encouraging community members to participate and write in ‘Assyrian’ as their race in this year’s census after massive undercounting in previous national surveys.
A coronavirus outbreak at a Heartland Alliance facility on Chicago’s South Side may be the largest outbreak of the virus in any shelter for immigrant youth in the country.
After ICE detained Jesus Alberto “Beto” Lopez Gutierrez on his drive home from camping, his family has banded together to challenge his detention and deportation.
After fleeing war, many refugees who come to Chicago face new traumas in a city that had nearly 3,000 shooting victims last year. But the health services that once existed to support them are now being gutted.
Over 200 Chicagoans marched through Pilsen and Little Village Friday evening during a 90 degree heat wave to call for the abolishment of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.
Women’s March Illinois organizers hosted a candlelight vigil in downtown Chicago on April 13 to show solidarity with Syrians who have been displaced or suffered because of the civil war in that country.
Suzanne Akhras Sahloul is the founder and executive director of the Syrian Community Network, which helps Syrian refugees make a new home in the Chicago area.