An Illinois circuit court judge 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 decision is the first under the state’s 2019 Immigrant Tenant Protection Act (ITPA), which prohibits landlords from using a tenant’s immigration status to harass or intimidate them.
“This decision provides a measure of justice to a family facing a landlord willing to threaten to call federal immigration authorities in the belief that it would scare tenants,” Thomas A. Saenz, MALDEF president and general counsel, said in a statement. “Such unscrupulous conduct is appropriately unlawful under Illinois state law.”
The tenants, who began renting a basement apartment in Chicago’s Ashburn neighborhood in 2017 by a spoken agreement for $600 a month, faced several challenges in early 2020. The landlords, Marco Antonio Contreras and his wife, Denise Contreras, requested that they sign a written lease to document rental income for a loan application, altering several terms. According to the Chicago Tribune, the new lease changed the rent due date, required separate utility payments, and increased the security deposit. Notably, the tenants were not provided a copy of this contract. Two months later, the landlords announced a rent increase to $800 per month.
Unable to afford this hike, the tenants negotiated to maintain the original rent for an additional three months. In June 2020, the landlords told the tenants that they would need to vacate the property by August 2020 because the landlords wanted to sell the home. Later that month, the landlords entered the apartment and demanded early payment of rent. When the tenants requested a prorated amount, as they were preparing to move, the landlord threatened to report them to federal immigration authorities in violation of ITPA.
“We decided not to stay silent because our landlords threatened us with calling immigration, and we do not believe that anyone has a right to threaten us,” the tenant couple said in a statement. “No one should feel or act superior to others. We are all equals and deserve respect. Just because someone is your landlord does not mean that they get to do whatever they want to you.”
Illinois was the second state in the country to pass legal protections for immigrant tenants, following California’s lead in 2017. “Where you were born has nothing to do with the ability to pay rent on time — which is what the relationship between a landlord and a tenant should really be about,” Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker said in a press release in 2019. “I’m proud that in signing this bill, we’re making Illinois the first state in the Midwest to protect our immigrant tenants and give them a little more relief in these tumultuous times. Here in Illinois, we are, and always will be, a welcoming state.”
The ITPA prohibits Illinois landlords from threatening or discriminating against tenants on the basis of their immigration status or perceived immigration status. Specifically, it forbids landlords from threatening to call ICE on a tenant for purposes of intimidation or retaliation. Further, the law prohibits landlords from evicting tenants solely because of their immigration status.
“Everyone has rights under the rule of law regardless of their actual or perceived immigration status. In Illinois, landlords are prohibited from wielding the threat of immigration enforcement as a weapon against their tenants,” said Susana Sandoval Vargas, MALDEF Midwest Regional Counsel. “This decision shows that those who choose to disregard these protections will face serious consequences. This is an important victory for all tenants in Illinois, who, like our clients, just want a safe place to call home.”
Unlike mainstream media, we’re not capitulating to Trump.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.