The Chicago and county judicial ballots are long, and it is hard to know how judges are performing. The  Judicial Performance Commission Pilot Project aims to assess the  qualifications of judges seeking retention in the November 2010 election. The commission is made up of lawyer and non-lawyer community leaders who will create a comprehensive...
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Questions of Constitutional rights and civil liberties can seem complicated when applied to undocumented U.S. residents; however, the Supreme Court has tended to rule in favor 'natural rights' for all individuals on U.S. soil, regardless of legal status.
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Thousands of protesters marched Saturday from Union Park to Daley Plaza to protest Arizona’s new immigration law. The controversial law, which takes effect this summer, gives police the power to detain anyone they suspect to be in the country illegally. While Hispanics have often been the face for immigration issues in the United States,...
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“We are asking the President to use leadership in moving Immigration reform forward.”
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Crimson curtains flow in the wind of the air conditioning unit—their color a gentle contrast against the stark white walls. In the kitchen, the spatter and sizzle of the fried chicken 35-year-old Sattar Naama is making can be heard. The warm, greasy smell wafts throughout the tiny, one-room Rogers Park apartment. It doesn’t matter...
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At first glance, seeing him sip a Stella Artois at a bar in the Loop, one would have no clue about the harrowing journey of the well-dressed man sporting a gray textured button-down, black dress pants, a shiny watch on his left hand and an earring in his left ear. Based on his appearance,...
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Yasmin Mohamed, a Somali refugee living in Chicago, endured one of the globe’s greatest humanitarian crises, but understanding her future means journeying to ZIP code 60625. Four mornings a week Yasmin winds her way down Whipple Ave. to the Albany Park Community Center. The second floor classroom is a global village of 26 students...
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Naida Okanovic remembers as a child reading a textbook her mother copiously hand duplicated word for word by candlelight in the refuge of a basement in Bosnia. The walls surrounding her shook as Serbian soldiers overhead ignited grenades. Okanovic, now 21, is a University of Illinois at Chicago student studying psychology. Her experiences in...
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In a 48-to-1 vote, Chicago City Council passed a resolution Nov. 18 supporting a halt to the deportation of UIC junior Rigoberto Padilla and other undocumented students.  The resolution sponsored by Ald. George Cardenas (12th) called on Congress to pass the Dream Act of 2009, a bill introduced by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) that...
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By Jeanette Almada of LISC Chicago’s New Communities Program Two new affordable apartment buildings are benefiting Pilsen residents in two ways: they’re providing residents with high-quality, low-cost housing, and they’re occupying vacant industrial sites that had become neighborhood eyesores. The recently completed 45-unit Casa Morelos Apartments – one of the two resident buildings –...
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