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Oak Park volunteers search for housing solutions amid migrant crisis
The extended Marquez family, from left, Josemith Marquez, 7, Milagros Marquez, 45, Jose Marquez, 39, Amisaday Marquez, 12 and Meison Barraez, 24, pose for a portrait in the dining room of their new home in Forest Park, IL on January 23, 2024. A dim light shines through the frost-tinged dining...
Chicago Aldermen Push For Accountability Amid Complaints of Mistreatment at Migrant Shelters
A line to enter Chicago’s largest migrant shelter in Pilsen. Wednesday, December 20, 2023. The Chicago mayor’s office and Department of Family and Support Services (DFSS) fielded questions about the staffing company overseeing the migrant shelters, with aldermen concerned that complaints about mistreatment from staffers are being ignored.
Heat Study: Chicago Temperatures Vary as Much as 22 Degrees Between Neighborhoods
A vendor standing near Cermak Road in Pilsen protects themselves from the sun on a day when temperatures reached as high as 91 degrees, July 28, 2023. For three sweltering weeks last August, Em Ayala and her two-year-old son were confined to one room of their second-floor apartment in the East Side neighborhood of Chicago near the Illinois-Indiana border. The century-old bungalow they rent wasn’t providing adequate ventilation, while their lone window air conditioning unit only reached so far.
Defying Gravity: An Afghan’s Journey to Get His Pilot License
Afghan-born pilot Najibullah Amini does a helicopter flight precheck at SummerSkyz Flight School in Lansing, Illinois, on Jan. 1, 2024. Amini fled his home country twice because of the Taliban regime. Najibullah Amini’s eyes have always been fixed on the skies. Since childhood, Amini watched American planes fly overhead...
The Mental Health of Migrants Simmers Below the Surface as the Next Looming Crisis
Jorge Rubiano came to Chicago from Colombia last summer and is staying at a shelter on the Southwest Side. He mostly keeps his experiences to himself. But for migrants who want to talk about their mental health, a parade of helpers is filling in the void of a frayed mental health system.
How to Help Migrants Coming to Chicago
Nicolas Hernandez works with his fellow volunteers at Casa Hernandez, which accepts donations at their free store in Chicago. 30,000 migrants have arrived in Chicago since Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sent the first bus in August 2022. The city is still struggling with how to handle the influx of migrants...
We’re Growing! Borderless Wins Report For America Support To Expand Team
Reporter Liuan Huska speaks with Erika Bartlett and Abraham Marshall, former residents of West Chicago while investigating the effects of thorium on residents of West Chicago. Borderless Magazine will add a full-time Spanish-speaking reporter to cover environmental racism experienced by immigrant communities in 2024. Thanks to support from Report for...
Hundreds Of Migrants Sleeping In CTA Buses As City Braces For Winter Storm
SOUTH LOOP — Over 500 migrants slept in CTA buses at the city’s designated landing zone for new arrivals Monday — a record as Texas officials double down on busing people to Chicago and city leaders scramble to find enough housing with snow and freezing cold coming.
Cicero Residents Reeling From Summer Floods Blame City’s Poor Communication
Cicero resident Moris Sanchez’s home has flooded multiple times, including this past summer when eight inches of rain fell over three days. Inside Moris Sanchez’s home in suburban Cicero, a coat of paint conceals new drywall in some areas of the basement. He has slowly been working to...
What Borderless is watching on the immigration beat in 2024
An occupant at Chicago’s largest migrant shelter is seen observing dozens of residents and migrants as they mourned the death of 5-year-old, Juan Carlo Martinez Rivera during a vigil in Pilsen on Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2023. Overcrowded shelters, unhoused migrants at police stations, a backlog on temporary protected status...
Borderless Magazine’s favorite photos of 2023 — and the stories behind them
From a Venezuelan family’s long-awaited reunion to our Black Immigrants Today series, Borderless Magazine’s visual journalists amplified the stories of Chicago’s immigrant communities. Frank Sandoval hugs his daughter, Massiel Sandoval, 21, as they are reunited at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Ill., Friday, May 26, 2023. Massiel...
Borderless Magazine’s Top Stories of 2023
A long-delayed radiation cleanup, an all-women mariachi band, Afghans building community through soccer, and more stories Borderless reported on Chicago’s immigrant communities. Shamama soccer team coordinator, Hussein Rezaee, far right, socializes with the rest of the team after a game at West Park in Wilmette, Ill., May 21, 2023.
Chicago Mayor, Shelter Officials Respond to Living Conditions Following a Borderless Investigation
Illuminated by orange-tinted street lamps and handheld candles, hundreds of people stood in silence Wednesday night across the street from Chicago’s largest migrant shelter to grieve the loss of five-year-old Jean Carlo Martinez Rivero, who died just days earlier. . Outside the former manufacturing building turned shelter, mourners stared...
Two months on, Chicagoans grapple with the devastation of the Gaza war
A vigil in memory of Palestinians killed in Gaza by Israel Defense Forces, is held at the corner of N. Broadway and W. Leland Ave. on Nov. 7, 2023. On a frigid night in early November, about 50 people huddled on a street corner in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood with candles and flowers in hand. As the elevated train rumbled above their heads, the group stood in silence, mourning the thousands of civilians killed in Gaza since the war broke out between Israel and Hamas.
5-Year-Old Boy Dies After Falling Ill At Chicago’s Largest Migrant Shelter
Two adjoining buildings in an industrial section of Pilsen make up Chicago’s largest migrant shelter. More than a dozen migrants living there say the shelter is dangerous and unsanitary. A five-year-old boy died after falling ill inside Chicago’s largest migrant shelter, adding concerns to the living conditions at the...
Investigation: Migrants Describe Inhumane Conditions at Chicago’s Largest Shelter
Two adjoining buildings in an industrial section of Pilsen make up Chicago’s largest migrant shelter. More than a dozen migrants living there say the shelter is dangerous and unsanitary. Maria* feels the dust and fiber-like particles fall from the ceiling and blanket on her family every time she tries...
‘I Cannot Work’: Venezuelan TPS Applicants Face Large Hurdles in Getting Work Permits
Moises Gacias outside of the house he is staying at in Chicago’s McKinley Park neighborhood. Gacias’ wife, three kids and sick mother live in Venezuela. Leafy green plants line the window of a small, brick home in McKinley Park. Inside the dimly lit house, a shy gray and white cat has become Moises Gacias’ new friend, helping him stave off the loneliness of being in a new country. At night the Venezuelan migrant closes his eyes to the sight of the gray figure and wakes up alongside the small cat each morning.
A Chicago faith-based nonprofit furnishes homes for asylum seekers
Sandra Milena Gallego and Jheyson Pulgarin Moncada, left, review the list of families receiving donated furniture from Chicago Furniture Bank, while other employees ready rental trucks inside the New Life Center warehouse in Little Village on Nov. 27th, 2023. Jorge Crespo finds a spot for a newly donated bedroom set...
As Chicago’s shelter rule for migrant families takes effect, here are three student rights to know
Students react as they play tag at Brighton Park Elementary on Thursday, July 20, 2023 in Chicago, Illinois. This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters. Chicago educators and advocates are concerned about how Mayor Brandon Johnson’s new 60-day limit for shelter stays for...
After decades of waiting, West Chicago’s Final Radiation Cleanup Begins
Ata Rehman, 42, has lived across the street from a former factory site that produced radioactive thorium in West Chicago since 2016. For years, Ata Rehman has looked out his door and wondered when work would finally be completed on the acres of fenced-in fields near his home in suburban West Chicago.
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