Latest news with #Richardson-Lowry
Politico
27-06-2025
- Politics
- Politico
DHS returns anti-terrorism funds held back from big cities
Major cities are again receiving counter-terrorism funding and reimbursement for security at major events that had been withheld by the Trump administration to punish local governments run by Democrats. The Department of Homeland Security has restored payments to Chicago, Seattle and San Francisco and other cities that had sued DHS to restore the funding, officials said. 'Citizens all over the country will benefit as a consequence of that initial filing because those releases are now beginning to trickle out,' Mary Richardson-Lowry, Chicago's corporation counsel, said Thursday. The restoration of the funds from the Securing the Cities program comes as communities around the country increase security as a precaution following the U.S. strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. Chicago had filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in May, claiming the funds that Congress had allotted for the city were being illegally withheld by DHS. San Francisco, Seattle, Denver and Boston joined in the lawsuit when their funds were also cut. Richardson-Lowry's office said Seattle and San Francisco have begun receiving their funding and Boston's payment is in process. The mayor's office in Denver did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Securing the Cities program was created to help prepare for the possibility of nuclear or terrorist attacks. It began as a pilot program in the New York City region in 2006 and expanded over time to 13 cities. In 2018, the program was formally authorized by Congress. The money is used to fund security measures and training, including for large-scale events such as Lollapalooza, which each summer draws about 400,000 people to Chicago's downtown. Chicago was awaiting reimbursement of about $1.2 million for expenses that included the purchase of equipment to detect a nuclear event. 'We need that equipment to ensure our citizens have every opportunity to be safe in this current environment,' said Richardson-Lowry. DHS did not immediately return a request for comment about the funding. Earlier this week, the agency issued a warning of a 'heightened threat environment' across the country after U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
Chicago Tribune
24-06-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
City mum on what documents it provided ICE in Streets and Sanitation subpoena
After first asserting they did not turn over personal information about city workers to U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement, Mayor Brandon Johnson's Law Department is now hedging on how exactly the administration responded to a federal subpoena for employment eligibility forms. Johnson Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry told reporters last week the city's response to an ICE subpoena for the forms of Streets and Sanitation employees that determine whether they can legally work in the U.S. contained no personal information about those workers. But on Monday, a Law Department spokesperson declined to go that far when the Tribune asked about what documents ICE did receive and what information they contain. 'The City's communications with the Department of Homeland Security regarding the subpoena issued to the Department of Streets and Sanitation are still ongoing,' Kristen Cabanban said in a statement. 'Moreover, these communications contain privileged and confidential information. As such, we cannot and will not comment on the specific nature or contents of those communications.' The latest explanation from the Law Department comes after it denied the Tribune's Freedom of Information Act request last week for records of the correspondence and documents the city has sent to ICE. Because the city rejected the Tribune's request in its entirety — and didn't simply redact any private data in its response — it remains unclear exactly what information the city provided to ICE. Last week, Richardson-Lowry answered a question on whether the city's response to ICE contained personal information by saying that 'under federal law, we had an obligation to at least provide a listing, and that information was provided without the kind of detail that you just referenced.' The Tribune reported earlier this month that ICE subpoenaed two city departments — the Clerk's Office and Streets and Sanitation — as part of an apparent new tactic in Republican President Donald Trump's plan to target Chicago as he seeks to ramp up deportations. Richardson-Lowry has said the administration will not cooperate with the first summons, which seeks applications to the clerk's CityKey municipal ID program that is used by immigrants, among other Chicagoans. The Tribune had filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking records of the correspondence and documents the city sent to ICE in both subpoenas to verify the Law Department's statements. The city rejected the FOIA last week, citing an attorney-client privilege exemption. The Streets and Sanitation subpoena in question from March 21 seeks the department's I-9 forms, which show whether an employer has complied with verifying its employees are legally authorized to work in the U.S. Cabanban did not directly answer follow-up questions Monday on whether the city in fact sent over any I-9 forms to ICE; whether any documents turned over contained private data; or whether Streets and Sanitation employees should be concerned about the federal agency obtaining their personal information. The ICE subpoena asks the city for the I-9 forms of all Streets and Sanitation employees, a list of current employees and ex-staffers terminated 12 months prior to the subpoena date, payroll data for all employees and their Employer Identification Number, a list of all current city contractors and a list of all staffing companies and their rosters. The I-9 form requires details such as the employee's address, date of birth, Social Security number, contact information, residency status and more. The employee must also provide documents verifying their identity and work eligibility, such as a passport or employment authorization document.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Mayor Brandon Johnson's administration says no obligation to hand city ID records to ICE
Mayor Brandon Johnson on Wednesday condemned the federal government's hunt for local records following news of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement subpoenaing a municipal ID program used by noncitizens. 'It's bad,' the mayor told reporters at his weekly news conference. 'It's wrong.' The mayor's short remarks came after the Tribune reported Friday that the city received a summons April 17 requiring the city to turn over the past three years of CityKey records, according to a copy obtained by the Tribune in a Freedom of Information Act request. Johnson corporation counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry said the administration won't cooperate with the subpoena because doing so would expose vulnerable applicants. 'We respectfully declined within the bounds of the law, given the privacy issues and specifically the exposure of groups like domestic violence victims, which would have been exposed had that information been provided, which would have been in contravention to their rights,' Richardson-Lowry said. 'We will continue to monitor … all administrative warrants, as we are doing now, and we've put a process in place should we receive future administrative warrants from this administration.' The ICE subpoena called on the city to 'provide a copy of the application and all supporting documents for all individuals who applied for a CityKey identification card between April 17, 2022, and April 17, 2025, and used any foreign document as proof of identity, including but not limited to: consular identification card, foreign driver's license, or foreign passport.' Richardson-Lowry noted the subpoena was an administrative warrant, meaning the city does not have to comply unless ICE chooses to escalate by seeking a court order. 'Should they move towards a court setting, we will respond in kind,' Richardson-Lowry said. 'In some other categories, we produce documents that we do think we're obligated to produce. But with respect to CityKey, we don't believe such an obligation is there.' The ID program was launched in 2017 by former Mayor Rahm Emanuel and city Clerk Anna Valencia as part of a stand against Trump — though it is not just for immigrants. While officials trumpeted the safety of the CityKey application during its inception, promising the city wouldn't keep identifying documents in case federal officials sought to track down applicants, the situation recently changed. After being overwhelmed by demand for the IDs by Venezuelan migrants at in-person events in fall 2023, Valencia started offering an online portal in December 2024. To meet state document requirements, the clerk's office has kept application materials for more than 2,700 people who used the online CityKey system since then, a spokesperson for Valencia told the Tribune on Friday. On Wednesday, Valencia released a statement saying her office was in the process of discussing next steps for the program. 'I'm engaging with community stakeholders and government officials to make sure CityKey continues to serve and protect all Chicagoans,' Valencia wrote. 'Thank you to the Law Department for their work in protecting vulnerable Chicagoans from potential harm and Mayor Johnson for his commitment to CityKey's mission. Working together to fight for our communities is a priority of mine and we'll continue to stand up for our neighbors.' Johnson spokesperson Cassio Mendoza had said Friday, 'Turning over personal information would betray the privacy and trust of residents who participated in the program. Mayor Johnson will continue to resist any attempts by the federal government to violate the rights and protections of Chicagoans.' Tonantzin Carmona, former chief of policy for the city clerk, told the Tribune Wednesday that the office 'examined every possible worst case scenario of how data could be used against a particular group to harm them' before CityKey's 2017 launch — including a federal subpoena. 'We definitely discussed this possible scenario,' Carmona, who left the clerk's office in 2019 and is now a Brookings Institution fellow, said. 'Disabling the online portal may be the most responsible course of action.' Carmona added that the federal government's actions could create a 'chilling effect' across the U.S. Outside Chicago, the Trump administration has been pressuring the Internal Revenue Service to share data with ICE to identify immigrants for deportations. A federal judge in May refused to block the IRS from doing so. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Trump in allowing his Department of Government Efficiency to access personal data stored in Social Security systems. 'City officials should be prepared for it to not be the only program that gets targeted,' Carmona said. 'This moment isn't just about records. It's about whether people feel that they can exist in public spaces, seek help from public agencies or like, fully belong in the city they call home.' CityKey appeals to immigrants because it allows noncitizens to obtain a city government-issued ID. It's unclear how many of its 87,100-plus applicants during the time period encompassed in ICE's subpoena are immigrants. The city clerk policy is to only retain records for those who apply via the online portal. The Tribune also obtained an ICE subpoena sent to Chicago's Department of Streets and Sanitation on March 21 that sought payroll records for current and recent employees as part of a worker eligibility audit. 'It's important to a community that wants to be an immigrant sanctuary to also be a data sanctuary, and that means to collect and retain as little information as possible about immigrants,' Adam Schwartz, privacy litigation director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said. 'The solution is for the holders of the data — in this case, the mayor of the City of Chicago — to fight back and say, 'No. We're going to use every legal tool at our disposal to protect data privacy.''
Chicago Tribune
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Mayor Brandon Johnson's administration says no obligation to hand city ID records to ICE
Mayor Brandon Johnson on Wednesday condemned the federal government's hunt for local records following news of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement subpoenaing a municipal ID program used by noncitizens. 'It's bad,' the mayor told reporters at his weekly news conference. 'It's wrong.' The mayor's short remarks came after the Tribune reported Friday that the city received a summons April 17 requiring the city to turn over the past three years of CityKey records, according to a copy obtained by the Tribune in a Freedom of Information Act request. Johnson corporation counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry said the administration won't cooperate with the subpoena because doing so would expose vulnerable applicants. 'We respectfully declined within the bounds of the law, given the privacy issues and specifically the exposure of groups like domestic violence victims, which would have been exposed had that information been provided, which would have been in contravention to their rights,' Richardson-Lowry said. 'We will continue to monitor … all administrative warrants, as we are doing now, and we've put a process in place should we receive future administrative warrants from this administration.' The ICE subpoena called on the city to 'provide a copy of the application and all supporting documents for all individuals who applied for a CityKey identification card between April 17, 2022, and April 17, 2025, and used any foreign document as proof of identity, including but not limited to: consular identification card, foreign driver's license, or foreign passport.' Richardson-Lowry noted the subpoena was an administrative warrant, meaning the city does not have to comply unless ICE chooses to escalate by seeking a court order. 'Should they move towards a court setting, we will respond in kind,' Richardson-Lowry said. 'In some other categories, we produce documents that we do think we're obligated to produce. But with respect to CityKey, we don't believe such an obligation is there.' The ID program was launched in 2017 by former Mayor Rahm Emanuel and city Clerk Anna Valencia as part of a stand against Trump — though it is not just for immigrants. While officials trumpeted the safety of the CityKey application during its inception, promising the city wouldn't keep identifying documents in case federal officials sought to track down applicants, the situation recently changed. After being overwhelmed by demand for the IDs by Venezuelan migrants at in-person events in fall 2023, Valencia started offering an online application in December 2024. To meet state document requirements, the clerk's office has kept application materials for more than 2,700 people who used the online CityKey system since then, a spokesperson for Valencia told the Tribune on Friday. Johnson spokesperson Cassio Mendoza said Friday, 'Turning over personal information would betray the privacy and trust of residents who participated in the program. Mayor Johnson will continue to resist any attempts by the federal government to violate the rights and protections of Chicagoans.' Tonantzin Carmona, former chief of policy for the city clerk, told the Tribune Wednesday that the office 'examined every possible worst case scenario of how data could be used against a particular group to harm them' before CityKey's 2017 launch — including a federal subpoena. 'We definitely discussed this possible scenario,' Carmona, who left the clerk's office in 2019 and is now a Brookings Institution fellow, said. 'Disabling the online portal may be the most responsible course of action.' Carmona added that the federal government's actions could create a 'chilling effect' across the U.S. Outside Chicago, the Trump administration has been pressuring the Internal Revenue Service to share data with ICE to identify immigrants for deportations. A federal judge in May refused to block the IRS from doing so. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Trump in allowing his Department of Government Efficiency to access personal data stored in Social Security systems. 'City officials should be prepared for it to not be the only program that gets targeted,' Carmona said. 'This moment isn't just about records. It's about whether people feel that they can exist in public spaces, seek help from public agencies or like, fully belong in the city they call home.' CityKey appeals to immigrants because it allows noncitizens to obtain a city government-issued ID. It's unclear how many of its 87,100-plus applicants during the time period encompassed in ICE's subpoena are immigrants. The city clerk policy is to only retain records for those who apply via the online portal. The Tribune also obtained an ICE subpoena sent to Chicago's Department of Streets and Sanitation on March 21 that sought payroll records for current and recent employees as part of a worker eligibility audit. 'It's important to a community that wants to be an immigrant sanctuary to also be a data sanctuary, and that means to collect and retain as little information as possible about immigrants,' Adam Schwartz, privacy litigation director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said. 'The solution is for the holders of the data — in this case, the mayor of the City of Chicago — to fight back and say, 'No. We're going to use every legal tool at our disposal to protect data privacy.''
Chicago Tribune
28-03-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
David Greising: A better way to achieve ethics reform in Chicago
After city Inspector General Deborah Witzburg complained publicly last month about City Hall interference with her investigations, the city's top lawyer countered with a rebuke. Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry at a news conference said requirements for timely compliance with records requests would remove '30 years of guardrails' that protect city workers. City lawyers need to sit in on the IG's investigative interviews of city workers, Richardson-Lowry claimed, because an attorney-client relationship exists between the workers and the city's Law Department. Well, not so fast. The policy arm of my organization, the Better Government Association, issued a statement by our outside counsel, who found no legal merit in Richardson-Lowry's claims. And former Gov. Pat Quinn has drafted a petition to address the corporation counsel's conflict of interest — by making the corporation counsel an elected office and no longer a tool of Chicago's mayor. Quinn's petition, to put an advisory referendum on voters' ballots, seems well intended. But petitions too often are ineffective, performative and piecemeal tools of reform. There needs to be a better way. In fact, there is, and it's called a city charter. One might ask: A city what? But bear with me, dear reader, and you may see the wisdom in this wonkish but powerful idea. A city charter is, in essence, a constitutional document for a municipality. Chicago does not have one. Two key peer cities — New York and Los Angeles — do. Hundreds of other cities, too. Charters are hardly a cure-all for urban ills. But they can reboot the rules by which a city is governed — which in a place such as corruption-ridden Chicago, could be a welcome change. A charter could cut the size of the City Council. It could better define the independent legislative powers of the council too. It could more effectively require disclosure and review of major city contracts. Those are some of the textbook arguments. In the grit and sweat of the city's work, a charter might prevent debacles such as the city's giveaway of its parking meters, or even the midnight destruction of Meigs Field. It might allow recall votes for ineffective mayors. It could even forbid an alderman from running a law firm that specializes in real estate appeals. The list goes on — almost as far as the good-government imagination might run. The trouble is, if normal politics are the art of the possible, then the politics of a charter campaign might fairly be described as the art of the nearly impossible. Action by the state legislature would be an important first step. But downstate lawmakers would have little incentive to back the idea. Even the Chicago caucus likely would be split on the issue. Even so, the upside benefits are potentially powerful enough that a push for a Chicago city charter could be worth the effort, regardless of the odds. In fact, the notion of a charter for Chicago is having a moment of sorts. The boomlet can be traced to a book, ' The New Chicago Way,' published six years ago, in which authors Austin Berg and Ed Bachrach held up Chicago in woeful comparison to 14 other U.S. cities. Our history of strongman mayors; nearly bankrupt public schools; fiscal and pension problems; rising violent crime; and other urban ills are in some ways linked to the lack of a city charter for Chicago, they argued. The idea was big and also abstract. But instead of dying on a bookshelf, it improbably caught on — in a slow-smolder sort of way. One effort that could use a dose of oxygen is the push by state Rep. Kam Buckner to secure a vote for the state legislature to launch the charter process — the most direct path toward that end under state law. Buckner made the charter idea a centerpiece of his 2023 mayoral campaign — and got 2% of the primary vote. Undeterred, Buckner has introduced a bill in Springfield to create a broadly diverse charter commission. Details are still in flux, but Buckner envisions an elected commission. Public officials would not be eligible, and ideally the seats would be filled with people from all walks: labor, business, neighborhood-based organizations and good-government groups; and people with expertise in municipal finance, constitutional law, zoning, data and democracy. The charter movement has attracted some odd political bedfellows. Quinn, one of the most progressive governors in state history, unveiled his petition this week at a charter-focused forum sponsored by the conservative Illinois Policy Institute. Several Chicago aldermen showed up, too — including Ald. Gilbert Villegas, 36th, who has called for a charter from the floor of the City Council. Legislative action will happen slowly, if at all. Inertia is hard to overcome. And those who benefit from the status quo won't let go easily. The charter is an abstract issue, and proponents have a difficult time making it viscerally meaningful to voters. Buckner figures the process could take a decade, all the more reason he argues the work needs to start now. And even downstate lawmakers eventually will back the idea, Buckner argues, because the state benefits when Chicago is strong and stable. 'This is big. It's difficult. It's bold,' Buckner told me. 'Let me remind people: We're Chicago. If people want to do it, we can put our minds together and do it right.' But a decade is too long to wait for reforms that are needed now. The City Council has it within its powers to take actions that would accomplish what a charter might. In fact, those protections the city IG is seeking against City Hall interference would be one place to start. In Chicago, it's never too soon to begin making government better.
