Progress Illinois

We’re not sure what to make of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USICS) ombudsman Michael Dougherty’s recent finding (PDF) that many immigrants who had gone through the arduous naturalization process this year were denied the citizenship oath in time to participate in the November election.

He found that in one of four cities where judges have exclusive authority to call the hearings, court officials reported that they weren’t given enough time to conduct the oaths in the days preceding the election. (Dougherty wouldn’t say which city, but Chicago is one of the four.) The result?  Nearly 2,000 new citizens were denied the right to vote.

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Back in September, when we wrote about Lake Co. Sheriff Mark Curran's escalating deportation efforts, a commenter left this note:

Curran somewhere along the line became a republican. No one is going to support him for re-election.

"Somewhere along the line," indeed.  Today, Curran announced that he's switched parties and officially joined the Republicans, citing the Democratic Party's record on "positions on immigration, charter-school funding and other issues." 

Wonder what Jim Edgar thinks about his party's newest member?

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.

Sometime in the next week, President-elect Barack Obama will sit down with U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Chicago), one of the nation’s most ardent immigrant reform activists. Until Obama is sworn into the White House and the new Congress convenes, Gutierrez tells us he isn’t expecting many details to emerge on how the administration will pursue the reforms.

As he readies for his meeting with Obama, the Illinois congressman organized a standing room-only summit at a church on Chicago’s Near West Side this weekend to show the incoming administration that he represents the voice of millions.

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Before federal authorities launched a military-style raid last spring on the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant in Postville, IA —rounding up and trying hundreds of undocumented immigrants for simply going to work—the Chicago-based Jewish Council on Urban Affairs (JCUA) knew that trouble was brewing.

Reports had surfaced that the management at Agriprocessors, the nation’s largest kosher meatpacking company, was condoning exploitative labor practices as their largely Guatemalan-born workforce struggled to subsist on poverty pay and garnished wages. JCUA and its allies from the Jewish community and beyond knew they had to take a stand.

“Then the raid happened,” JCUA’s executive director Jane Ramsey tells us. “And a light was shed on Agriprocessors and the depth of the abuse was beyond our comprehension.”

I sat down with Ramsey to learn about her experiences in helping the people of Postville put their lives back together.

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Today saw no action in Springfield on the governor’s not-so-popular Emergency Budget Act. Two more days remain in the veto session, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens. Nonetheless, there were a few legislative developments worth noting:

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Last Saturday, Rep. Luis Gutierrez held an event at a church on Chicago's West Side to highlight "the tragic, personal stories of countless U.S. citizens from Chicago and beyond whose families have been torn apart by an immigration system that values quotas over families."  Gutierrez spoke at length about the importance of comprehensive immigration form and the need to pressure incoming President Barack Obama to follow through on his pledges to pass such legislation.  He denounced the ongoing immigration raids nationwide and introduced members of four different Chicagoland families, who described how their husbands or wives had been detained or deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.  Watch:

In analyzing how the Illinois GOP can regain relevancy before a panel in Peoria, popular former Republican governor Jim Edgar issued this advice yesterday: find candidates Latinos can support.

“We cannot lose the Hispanic vote like we’ve lost the African-American vote, or we’re going to be a minority party forever,” Edgar said.

President George Bush “did a very good job of bringing Hispanics into the Republican column,” Edgar said, but congressional Republicans have “undone all that” by rejecting Bush-proposed reforms of immigration laws that included a path to staying in America for many illegal immigrants.

“The Hispanic vote broke for Obama,” Edgar said, noting large victories for Democrats in Colorado and New Mexico. “My fear is, they didn’t vote for Obama, they were voting against the Republican Party.”

When looking at the Latino vote in Illinois, it's difficult to disentangle Barack Obama's popularity and this demographic's disgust with the GOP's rightward turn. But local exit polling shows Edgar is on to something: 68 percent of Asian and Latino immigrant voters throughout key Chicago-area precincts said the GOP was "not favorable" to immigrants compared to nine percent for the Democrats.

Yet minutes after bemoaning the Republican Party for its immigration demagoguery, Edgar went ahead and endorsed a hardline anti-immigrant congressman for statewide office:

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On Tuesday, the Illinois Coalition of Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) and Univision Radio conducted exit polls of 1,210 non-native Asian and Latino voters throughout key Chicago-area precincts.  The results should send a wake-up call to the Illinois GOP.

In response to the question "How favorable to immigrants do you consider the Democratic/Republican party?" the exit poll found that immigrants have little confidence in the GOP:

That perception appears to have significantly influenced the way the 899 Latino immigrant respondents voted in some key congressional races:

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Like millions of Americans, Jaime Rios (right) of Waukegan cast his ballot today in the hope that new leadership in Washington D.C. will ultimately bring better jobs and health care. But for the 43-year-old landscaper, one particular issue really motivated him to vote: immigration reform.

The father of six has never lived with his children. They're in Mexico with their mother. As he cast a ballot for the first time since becoming a citizen one month ago, Rios worried that, without sufficient congressional support, the mountains of paperwork necessary to bring his family to America will simply collect dust.

"I voted not just for them," he added, "but for a lot of other people too."

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Determined to make their mark on Election Day, Illinois immigrants have turned it up this year.

Grassroots organizers registered 24,000 new voters, many of whom will vote in some of the nation's most high-profile congressional races. Community groups chased big bucks to conduct widespread voter outreach. This new wave of organizing -- coupled with frustration over workplace raids and deportations -- is expected to spur an unprecedented showing at the polls Nov. 4.

To take the guesswork out of how local immigrants are voting, Illinois Immigrant Election Central will conduct exit polls throughout the day tomorrow. Univision Radio, which is partnering with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) on the project, will then broadcast the results that evening.

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