Spring came and went

We hope that spring will come again!

After weather that was cold cold cold for so long, the temperature suddenly went up to 70! The sun came out and the birds came out and the people came out....but then the cold returned. Thankfully, the sun is still here, but it can't quite be felt at the moment. Well, the few nice days were a reminder that spring is possible, and hopefully, it won't be long until winter retreats--again! Speaking of retreats...we had a lovely 2-day retreat at church last weekend--and it was actually warm enough to go outside for the picture at the end!


It was such a great time of rest and reflection and relationship-building.

I also took a field trip recently with my co-workers and some Citizenship teachers and students to City Hall for a public hearing regarding Immigration's proposal to significantly raise the fees to apply for U.S. Citizenship (along with other immigration-related application fees). The current fee to apply is $400 and the proposal would raise that to $675--an enormous amount for folks working minimum-wage jobs. Several members of the Chicago City Council are committed to passing a resolution against these fee raise. One of our students gave a powerful testimony about how the fee raise would negatively affect his eligible family members and others in his community who are already finding it difficult to collect the money to apply (at the current cost). According to testimonies of other city officials and community workers, USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) has not been able to provide a specific dollar amount that it actually costs to process an application, yet is insisting that applicants pay more for already mediocre service (over 100,000 applications are lost or misplaced each year by USCIS and some folks have to wait up to four years for applications to be processed). They have also refused to request any federal money to support these services. Perhaps if the federal minimum wage increased at the same rate as application fees this new proposal could be justified. The passing of the proposal would mean erecting another wall (this one invisible) between immigrants and their dreams to become US Citizens.

Here is the lovely group of folks from Instituto that turned out!


This upcoming Thursday will be my last day at Instituto del Progreso Latino. I don't yet have another position, but have a much clearer sense of where I'm headed than I have had for a while. I'll keep you updated!