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Illinois

Residents Victorious In Fight To Stop Pekin, Illinois Data Center

Pekin, IL — Residents celebrated a victory Tuesday night as Mayor Mary Burress announced that Pekin City Council does not plan to move forward with approval for a proposed AI data center. Burress was greeted with applause by those in attendance as she read off her statement indicating the council was nixing the facility. “When a project creates this level of uncertainty and division, it is important for us to step back to consider whether moving forward is truly the right path,” Buress told the crowd. Zoey Carter, who is running for the Illinois State House in District 93, expressed gratitude for the decision, highlighting the various reasons the community opposed the data center.

UIC Students Host Victory Rally After Kicking TPUSA Off Campus

Chicago, IL – On March 4, 30 students rallied in the quad at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). The protest, organized by New Students for a Democratic Society, was originally a counter-protest meant to happen at the same time as a Turning Point USA (TPUSA) event. TPUSA announced a “Prove me Wrong” event featuring Pastor Lucas Miles, who has a record of anti-immigrant rhetoric. Immediately after TPUSA’s announcement, SDS organized a counter-protest with the slogan, “Tell TPUSA Immigrants are Welcomed Here!” The night before the morning rally, TPUSA shared on social media that they were canceling the event “due to weather.”

Illinois’ Low-Cost Library Program Takes On The Justice Gap

Last fall, when an anxious patron rushed into the Addison Public Library asking how to file a court document, Sara Lock felt prepared. She’d grown up depending on the library herself and had just completed training so she could help people facing the court system alone. “It was just a coincidence that worked out well,” Lock recalled. Lock sat with the woman for an hour in one of the west suburban library’s computer labs and helped her craft an email to court officials to move the woman’s case forward. Lock couldn’t remember all the details of the woman’s case, and she and her co-workers say they prefer it that way – hoping a degree of obscurity will keep patrons coming back for free help.

Detroiters Demand City Council Ban ICE From Communities

Detroit—Demonstrating through the bitter cold, Detroiters rallied at the Spirit of Detroit statue on Tuesday before a City Council meeting to demand an end to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in their communities. The action centered on a resolution submitted by Councilmember Gabriela Santiago-Romero that would prohibit ICE from schools, religious institutions, clinics, and all city property. “If our neighbors are not safe and free, then we are not safe and free,” said Board of Police Commissioner Victoria Camille of District 7, who joined the action. “Immigration status matters should not be handled with masks, guns, chemical spray, battering rams, and handcuffs.

Chicago Budget Fight: Corporate Interests Clash With Working-Class

Chicago, IL – Corporate-backed alderpersons pushed through an unbalanced budget to avoid taxing big businesses on Saturday, December 20, but conceded important measures after sustained pressure from working-class Chicagoans. The final budget package, championed by conservative council members, promises to sell to private debt collectors nearly $100 million debt from water bills, parking tickets and ambulance fees. It also increases liquor and gambling taxes and sells city spaces for advertising. These measures, which have been assessed as fiscally irresponsible by the city’s budget experts, are the last ditch effort by the group of oppositional alderpersons who have fought to avoid instituting a corporate head tax, in which the largest 3% of corporations would pay less than a thousandth of a percent of their profits based on the number of workers they employ.

Horseshoe Indianapolis Dealers Resist Repression In Fourth Week Of Strike

Shelbyville, IN - The strike for union recognition at the Horseshoe Indianapolis Casino has now entered its fourth week, marking more than 23 days on the picket line for table games dealers and dual rate dealers. These workers, who greet one another each day with the call-and-response “One day longer” and “One day stronger,” are carrying out one of the most significant and courageous private-sector labor battles in modern Indiana history, and one of the only major recognition strikes seen in the United States in decades. Their struggle is being closely watched across the state and around the country. The dealers and dual rates are fighting to preserve their rights, defend free speech, and win democratic recognition in the face of corporate union-busting, a federal shutdown, and now an unprecedented attempt by the city of Shelbyville to help Caesars Entertainment crush the strike by forcibly removing lawfully picketing workers from public land.

Eviction By ICE?

Rodrick Johnson, 67, had just returned home from a trip to the hospital and was trying to get some rest. But in the early hours of September 30, bright lights suddenly flooded his apartment. A fleet of Black Hawk helicopters descended on his five-story building — a 130-unit apartment complex at 7500 South Shore Drive — shortly before armed, masked men stormed past the doors of the ground floor. “The next thing I knew, they were kicking my door in,” Johnson says. He and dozens of his neighbors were marched outside at gunpoint during the multiagency raid carried out by some 300 federal agents in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood. Black and Latino residents were zip-tied, separated by race and detained inside cargo vans, as South Side Weekly reported in the raid’s aftermath.

Judge Bars ICE Attacks On Journalists And Protesters While Hearing Lawsuit

United States District Judge Sara Ellis issued a temporary restraining order to prevent attacks by federal agents on journalists or non-violent protesters. She instructed agents to wear “visible identification” on their uniforms or helmets. Also, Ellis restricted the use of crowd control weapons on journalists, protesters, or clergy, including a prohibition against shooting individuals “to strike the head, neck, groin, spine, or female breast, or striking any person with a vehicle.” The order [PDF], which applies to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other agencies, will remain in force for two weeks while a court reviews a lawsuit alleging significant First Amendment violations.

The 13th Largest Army In World Is Unleashing Violence In Chicago

If the immigration enforcement apparatus of the United States were its own national military, it would be the 13th most heavily funded in the world. This puts it higher than the national militaries of Poland, Italy, Australia, Canada, Turkey and Spain — and just below Israel. That bloated force is due to a massive funding increase in President Donald Trump’s budget bill that went into effect October 1, and it comes as Chicagoland faces an escalation of violence from ICE and other federal agencies. Agents are tear gassing and beating protesters, raiding and ransacking communities across the area, and detaining people at homeless shelters and hospitals. They are roaming the city and surrounding suburbs in masks, sometimes in plain clothes and unmarked cars, and other times — especially near protests — in armored vehicles, wearing the militarized, camouflage uniforms that are the hallmark of soldiers.

Caravan Of Justice Seeks To Chase ICE Out Of Dupage And Elgin

Wheaton IL - With Operation Midway Blitz intensifying, seeing ICE terror inflicted across the area across Dupage and Kane County, particularly West Chicago and Elgin, Casa Dupage Workers Center 501c3 along with local allies from houses of worship and from the community with carry out a Caravan of Justice of dozens of cars, to show ICE that the streets of Dupage and Kane County belong to the residents of our County including our hard working Latino immigrants who are being targeted by ICE. The Caravan is a tradition in which cars, decorated with flags and placards, join together to travel the county, and in case of ICE raids, be able to respond with a mass of people ready to protest and protect our County’s most vulnerable, local Latinos working construction sites, restaurants, landscaping jobs and at area factories and warehouses.

‘We’re Going In’: Trump Moves To Deploy Troops To Chicago

After weeks of threats, US President Donald Trump officially announced that he is sending federal forces to the US city of Chicago. On September 2, Trump declared his intent to send federal troops, including National Guard personnel, to Chicago to address rising crime, stating: “We’re going in. I didn’t say when, but we’re going in.” On Tuesday, Trump claimed in a post on Truth Social that Chicago is “the worst and most dangerous city in the World, by far.” Chicago is not the most dangerous city in the world or even the nation in terms of violent crime and homicide. Chicago’s overall violent crime rate remains higher than the national average, but it’s seeing a steady decline.

Illinois Restores Protections For Press Targeted With Frivolous Lawsuits

The Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) describes strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs, as lawsuits that are “intended to chill and punish constitutionally protected speech, including journalism." Such “frivolous lawsuits” are typically pursued by “wealthy and powerful” elites against speech that they dislike. By forcing individuals or organizations to “spend time and money defending themselves,” elites are able to “chill reporting, activism, and criticism.” In the state of Illinois, several organizations and lawyers worked with legislators to clarify and expand protections for the news media after the Illinois Supreme Court significantly diminished the law in November 2024.

Chicagoans Pack City Hall To Oppose Jim Crow Curfew Ordinance

Chicago, IL – On Wednesday morning, July 16, hundreds of people packed the Chicago city hall lobby ahead of the city council meeting. Many youth and community organizations stood united in opposition to the racist snap curfew ordinance that was put forward by Alderman Brian Hopkins two months before. This snap curfew would give the Chicago Police Department unchecked power in the instance of a mass gathering to institute a curfew with only 30 minutes notice and engage in mass arrests. The curfew received a favorable vote in the June city council meeting, but Mayor Brandon Johnson vetoed the ordinance.

Statewide Campaign Aims To End Illinois’ Investment In Israel

Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerichs has been investing in Israel for nearly a decade. Since becoming the sole fiduciary of the fifth-largest GDP in the country in January 2015, he has invested tens of millions of taxpayer dollars into the Development Corporation of Israel (“DCI”). DCI is the underwriter for “Israel Bonds,” uninsured debt securities issued by the Israeli government to raise capital for the country. The idea to pitch these kinds of bonds originated after the 1948 Nakba, when the new state was critically short on economic resources. According to the the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office, the state of Illinois currently has $100 million invested in Israel Bonds.

Over 100 Mauser Teamsters Enter Fourth Week On Strike In Chicago

Chicago, IL – On Wednesday July 2, around 100 striking workers joined the picket line outside Mauser Packaging Solutions Steel Drum Reconditioning plant in Chicago. The facility has sat closed, with the operation halted and the gates locked, for almost a month as a result of the strike called by Teamsters Local 705 due to unfair labor practices committed by Mauser during the negotiations for a new contract. “We are on an Unfair Labor Practice strike against Industrial Container Services (aka Mauser Packaging Solutions) after the company illegally surveilled union members. Members are also fighting for a contract that includes respectable wages, benefits, immigration protection and workplace stability language,” according to a public statement by the union.
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