ICIRR in the News

For the past few years, Cristina Garcia has hounded officials in Springfield and brought the campaign for humane immigration reform to the streets of Chicago. Last week, she took her advocacy to a whole new level. Through a national program hatched by the Center for Community Change (nicely profiled by NPR), Garcia and a team of organizers from Illinois headed to D.C.

Chicago-area religious persons began training volunteers Tuesday to take advantage of a new Illinois law allowing for more clergy visits to jailed immigrants awaiting deportation, an effort they say will shed more light on prison conditions faced by that population.

While most news these days focuses on the economic crisis and its hoped-for solution, U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D.-Ill.) wants to remind the Obama Administration of the need for immigration reform.

The State Children's Health Insurance Program, or S-chip as it is known, was created in 1997 to reduce the number of uninsured children by providing subsidized insurance to children of the working poor. In January 2009, Congress voted to expand the program after nearly two years of battling with former President George W. Bush on the subject.

The economy tops the list of Hispanic concerns for the new administration, according to a new study released last week, with immigration ranking sixth.

Here is a video from a recent immigrant-suppression sweep by Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County, Ariz. It’s painful to watch – two of the victims are young children who have been forcibly separated from their mother, who was turned over to federal immigration authorities.

Illinois immigrants went to the polls this fall and supported in large numbers candidates who promised to deliver on much-needed national immigration reforms. On Saturday morning, more than 1,000 came together to let incoming members of Congress and the White House know they’re ready to see some action soon.

As the Republican Party surveys its post-election train wreck, the pain must be even greater knowing that, with Hispanic voters, the GOP drove itself off the track.

Some religious workers led by nuns have won a victory in Springfield that could give them more time with some immigrant detainees.

Immigrant-rights advocates scored a long-fought victory today when the House and the Senate unanimously approved the Access to Religious Ministry Act, which grants undocumented detainees the right to religious counsel.