Immigration

Pam G. Dempsey/CU-CitizenAccess.org —Every year, thousands of migrant workers come to harvest food for Illinois while going hungry themselves.

“You suffer a lot,” said Abel Cintora, a farm worker and a member of the Illinois Migrant Council.

Cintora was one of several people to speak recently at a hearing in Rantoul as part of a state task force to end hunger.

“One of the hardships is the fact that we never know if we are going to have a full paycheck,” he said in Spanish to a room of about two dozen people. “A lot of times your faced with the choice to pay rent or buy food.”

By Julie Wurth/ News-Gazette/URBANA -- About 2,600 people each year call on Anh Ha Ho and her colleagues with questions about schools, taxes, housing, jobs, medical care you name it. And most of them don't speak much English.

The East Central Illinois Refugee Mutual Assistance Center functions as a mini-social services agency, helping immigrants and refugees adjust to life in Champaign County.

Housed in a small office inside the Unitarian Universalist Church, 302 S. Birch St., U, the nonprofit charity has seen its client base grow almost every year since its founding in 1982.

By Shelley Smithson —A Spanish-speaking woman calls the East Central Illinois Refugee Mutual Assistance Center because she does not know where to turn for help. She says she was seriously injured when the balcony of her apartment collapsed and the apartment owner will not pay her hospital bills.