Illinois grew to become the second state within the nation to move authorized protections for immigrant tenants in 2019.
An Illinois circuit courtroom decide has ordered Chicago landlords to pay former tenants $80,000 after they threatened to report the tenants to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in June 2020.
The choice is the first beneath the state’s 2019 Immigrant Tenant Safety Act (ITPA), which prohibits landlords from utilizing a tenant’s immigration standing to harass or intimidate them.
“This resolution supplies a measure of justice to a household dealing with a landlord prepared to threaten to name federal immigration authorities within the perception that it could scare tenants,” Thomas A. Saenz, MALDEF president and common counsel, said in a statement. “Such unscrupulous conduct is appropriately illegal beneath Illinois state regulation.”
The tenants, who started renting a basement house in Chicago’s Ashburn neighborhood in 2017 by a spoken settlement for $600 a month, confronted several challenges in early 2020. The landlords, Marco Antonio Contreras and his spouse, Denise Contreras, requested that they signal a written lease to doc rental revenue for a mortgage utility, altering several terms. In keeping with the Chicago Tribune, the brand new lease modified the lease due date, required separate utility funds, and elevated the safety deposit. Notably, the tenants had been not provided a duplicate of this contract. Two months later, the landlords announced a lease improve to $800 per 30 days.
Unable to afford this hike, the tenants negotiated to take care of the unique lease for an extra three months. In June 2020, the landlords told the tenants that they would wish to vacate the property by August 2020 as a result of the landlords wished to promote the house. Later that month, the landlords entered the house and demanded early cost of lease. When the tenants requested a prorated quantity, as they had been making ready to maneuver, the owner threatened to report them to federal immigration authorities in violation of ITPA.
“We determined to not keep silent as a result of our landlords threatened us with calling immigration, and we don’t imagine that anybody has a proper to threaten us,” the tenant couple said in a statement. “Nobody ought to really feel or act superior to others. We’re all equals and deserve respect. Simply because somebody is your landlord doesn’t imply that they get to do no matter they need to you.”
Illinois was the second state within the nation to move authorized protections for immigrant tenants, following California’s lead in 2017. “The place you had been born has nothing to do with the flexibility to pay lease on time — which is what the connection between a landlord and a tenant ought to actually be about,” Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker said in a press release in 2019. “I’m proud that in signing this invoice, we’re making Illinois the primary state within the Midwest to guard our immigrant tenants and provides them just a little extra reduction in these tumultuous occasions. Right here in Illinois, we’re, and all the time can be, a welcoming state.”
The ITPA prohibits Illinois landlords from threatening or discriminating towards tenants on the premise of their immigration standing or perceived immigration standing. Particularly, it forbids landlords from threatening to name ICE on a tenant for functions of intimidation or retaliation. Additional, the regulation prohibits landlords from evicting tenants solely due to their immigration standing.
“Everybody has rights beneath the rule of regulation no matter their precise or perceived immigration standing. In Illinois, landlords are prohibited from wielding the specter of immigration enforcement as a weapon towards their tenants,” said Susana Sandoval Vargas, MALDEF Midwest Regional Counsel. “This resolution exhibits that those that select to ignore these protections will face critical penalties. This is a vital victory for all tenants in Illinois, who, like our shoppers, simply desire a protected place to name house.”
We’re resisting Trump’s authoritarian stress.
Because the Trump administration strikes a mile-a-minute to implement right-wing insurance policies and sow confusion, dependable information is an absolute should.
Truthout is working diligently to fight the concern and chaos that pervades the political second. We’re requesting your assist at this second as a result of we’d like it – your month-to-month present permits us to publish uncensored, nonprofit information that speaks with readability and fact in a second when confusion and misinformation are rampant. As nicely, we’re trying with hope on the materials motion group activists are taking. We’re uplifting mutual support tasks, the life-sustaining work of immigrant and labor organizers, and different exhibits of solidarity that resist the authoritarian stress of the Trump administration.
As we work to dispel the ambiance of political despair, we ask that you just contribute to our journalism. Over 80 % of Truthout’s funding comes from small particular person donations from our group of readers, and over a 3rd of our complete funds is supported by recurring month-to-month donors.
You may assist by giving as we speak. Whether or not you can also make a small month-to-month donation or a bigger present, Truthout solely works along with your assist.
Source link