A new statewide study calls for more laws to guard against 'chemical trespass,' as agrichemicals were found at schools and parks across the state. The study comes just days after Illinois lawmakers rejected a bill requiring advance spray notice to those sites.
The Illinois legislature is debating whether to become one of a handful of states to legally require worker protections from extreme temperatures. The legislation would apply to labor on the frontlines of the climate crisis, such as farm work.
More than 700 Illinois schools are within a quarter-mile of crop fields, yet state law doesn’t require pesticide applicators to notify them before spraying. Advocates say a new notification proposal would give educators and park staff time to move children indoors and reduce exposure.
The administration’s push to deport millions, along with the rollback of multiple immigration policies, has created labor shortages and fear from warehouses to meatpacking plants.
With President Trump’s end of a program that once safeguarded whistleblowers and a focus on deportation, advocates warn the nation’s food supply chain is at risk.
I had heard that many of the workers had recently lost their jobs after changes under the Trump administration — particularly the rollback of humanitarian parole programs — left them undocumented and out of work.
While every farm-dependent county in the state has lost population in the past decade, counties tied to meatpacking and food processing are holding on thanks to foreign-born workers — a trend that could be upended by Trump’s deportation plans.
Esta nota cuenta con el apoyo del Chicago Region Food Systems Fund. Read the story in English here.
En Beardstown, Illinois, la pareja cubana había pasado el último año construyendo
