Working for Illinois Caucus

Millions of dollars in state funding is available to reimburse Illinois municipalities that provide aid to asylum seekers.

The aid can include food, shelter and transitional housing support, clothing and wraparound services such as case management and translation, transportation, early childhood education, school enrollment, legal assistance and health and wellness services to address the trauma and stress of relocation.

"Illinois believes in the morality of all human lives. That’s what it means for us to be a welcoming state," said state Rep. Maurice West, D-Rockford.

More:What happened the night a plane filled with asylum seekers landed in Rockford?

In the first round of Supporting Municipalities for Asylum Seeker Services Grants, Chicago received $30.25 million; Elgin, $1.27 million; Lake County, $1 million; Urbana, $250,000; and the Village of Oak Park, $400,000.

On March 28, the Winnebago County Board approved a resolution outlining the county’s response in the event of a crisis where asylum seekers are abandoned in Winnebago County without means of transportation to the landing zone in Chicago.

Per the resolution, the county will only use resources and expenditures related to the cost of transporting asylum seekers to the landing zone in Chicago and any essential care needed prior to travel, including temporary shelter, food, water, and necessary medical care.

The state defines asylum seekers as "an individual who crossed the Mexico/U.S. border on or after August 1, 2022, with the intent to stay permanently, and who does not possess any permanent or interim U.S. legal status."

In round two, $11 million in funding has been made available to municipalities outside of Chicago.

Only municipal governments receiving or willing to receive asylum seekers are eligible to apply.

A total of $165 million has been set aside by the state to reimburse municipalities for services rendered, West said.

Chris Green is a Rockford Register Star general assignment reporter. He can be reached at 815-987-1241, via email at cgreen@rrstar.com and X @chrisfgreen.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — State Rep. Katie Stuart, D-Edwardsville, has been selected by Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch to lead a legislative working group formed in order to focus Illinois’ response to widespread difficulties with teaching vacancies.

“I approached Speaker Welch about forming this working group because teacher turnover continues to increase and districts are struggling to fill vacancies,” Stuart said. “We have taken some small steps in recent years, and districts are doing all they can to attract talent, but the problem still exists, so it’s time to step up our efforts.”

Stuart is a former educator and career-long advocate who has an extensive history of advocating for public education. She says she hopes the working group will be able to turn an assortment of related and often overlapping or intersecting bills into a coordinated and effective policy response.

“Our priority has to be what’s best for our students, and that means what’s best for our teachers,” Stuart said. “There are a lot of groups out there trying to address these issues in a lot of different ways, and they all have agendas and plans and priorities. But, at the end of the day, what we need to achieve is to fill vacancies with qualified teachers so that Illinois families can once again rely on their kids having access to the world class education that should be the birthright of every American child.”

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97th District Democratic State Rep. Harry Benton is working on a number of bills including some for tax relief and to extend remote schooling options for military families.

One bill would list all of the exemptions that people qualify for on their tax bill.

Benton also says he’s working on a joint resolution naming a building for former Secretary of State Jesse White.

The Illinois House and Senate are working through thousands of bills filed for the spring legislative session which runs through May. Lawmakers also need to pass a budget in that timeframe.

Benton says that because it’s an election year, there could be more politics playing into what gets a vote and what doesn’t.

The challenge to former 114th District State Rep. LaToya Greenwood’s nominating petitions ended recently when Wavey T. Lester, a former state senate candidate from Milstadt, backed down and withdrew the objection. (Photo courtesy of LaToya Greenwood for State Representative)

In early December the Illinois GOP was quick to jump on a formal challenge brought against the nominating petitions of former 114th District House Rep. LaToya Greenwood.

Postings on the Illinois GOP’s website and the objector’s Facebook page bannered the action. The GOP alleged a “pattern of fraud,” and posted on both the organization’s website and on the former Twitter website (now “X”) on Dec. 11, over the background “Fraud Alert” in large red capitalized letters.

“Pattern of fraud in Metro East alleged in signature objections,” it announced.

There was no such fanfare in January, however, when objector Wavey T. Lester, a former state senate candidate from Milstadt, backed down and withdrew the

Kevin Schmidt, 114th District State Rep. (Kevin Schmidt photo)

objection. In order for the objection to have been sustained, an Illinois State Board of Elections hearing officer would have had to have found that fully two-thirds of the more than 1,600 signatures Greenwood had submitted were fraudulent or otherwise legally defective.

But Greenwood wasn’t blaming Lester. In a press release dated Jan. 12, Greenwood pointed the finger at freshman State Rep. Kevin Schmidt, who she will face in next fall’s general election. She called the challenge a “backroom effort to deny voters a choice in the November election.”

Greenwood also called the petition objections a “baseless attempt to defame me … .” She also opined that the real target of the attack was “… the people of this district who want smart leadership — not conspiracy theories, disenfranchisement, and extremist agendas.”

There was just a bit of overstatement in Greenwood’s press release. It referred to “a bipartisan election board’s rejection” of the petition objection and said that “Republican and Democratic election officials are rejecting Kevin Schmidt’s effort to disenfranchise voters in our community.”

However, the ISBE never convened a hearing in which anything was rejected by anyone, due to the objection being withdrawn. But her rhetorical overreach underscored the political animus that has developed between her and Schmidt since late 2022, when he upset Greenwood by a six-point margin, flipping the district from blue to red.

Schmidt has called Greenwood “radical,” and she has called Schmidt “extreme.” During the 2022 campaign, they differed heatedly on the Safe-T Act, which ended cash bail in Illinois. She strongly supported the changes, Schmidt said it was ant-police and eroded law and order.

Schmidt says he is “fighting for fiscal responsibility in Springfield, and that he voted against Governor J.B. Pritzker’s “bloated $50.4 billion budget because it included pay raises for legislators and hundreds of millions of dollars for people in our state illegally.”

Saying that his focus “is serving the people of the 114th District,” Schmidt announced that he is donating his recent pay raise “to local charities to help people in need right here in our own backyard.”

Schmidt also touts his support of law enforcement, and proposes creating a grant program to help communities fund police body cameras. He also co-sponsored a bill that would extend the statute of limitations for prosecuting cases of COVID-19 relief funding fraud.

Greenwood has touted her co-sponsorship of 300 House and primary sponsorship of over 25 bills during her previous three terms as 114th District House Representative.

Schmidt, she said,  “… cannot and will not represent the diverse voices of this district.”