Carlos is a reporter at Injustice Watch covering police, politics and immigrant communities. Previously, he worked at the Chicago Sun-Times and Newsweek. Carlos was born in Chicago and lives in the city’s Lower West Side.
The Clay County Jail in southwestern Indiana will soon be the only immigration detention center between Wisconsin and Kentucky. The county is considering a proposal to more than double the jail’s size to detain more immigrants.
Sheriff Tom Dart filed a petition before the Illinois Supreme Court on Monday asking the justices to force the state department of corrections to accept the transfer of over 500 people from the Cook County Jail.
Former prosecutors dominate the roster of 22 new associate judges, who were selected last week by the county’s circuit judges.
How many cops have gotten their vaccine shots? The question has a definite answer. But no one in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office or the police department seems able to put a number on it.
But a lack of funding and personnel could drastically limit how many immigrants the county can represent.
On Tuesday, the chief judge’s office released the names of 44 candidates, half of whom will be chosen by circuit judges to fill vacancies.
The state Supreme Court is delaying the reactivation of speedy trial rights until October in order to give chief circuit judges statewide “at least 90 days to prepare,” according to a press release.
At the start of the pandemic, the Illinois Supreme Court suspended defendants’ constitutional rights to a speedy trial as courtrooms closed throughout the state. But even as pandemic restrictions are lifted across the board, the right to a speedy trial remains on hold.
The Illinois General Assembly passed a bill allowing Cook County public defenders to help noncitizens fight deportation in immigration court.
The ‘Illinois Way Forward Act’ now goes to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk for his signature. The bill would severely restrict how local police departments across the state can cooperate with federal immigration officers.