Stories by Matt Masterson

Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Johnson said there are currently only four people being held at the Broadview facility, a drastic reduction that comes weeks after detainees there testified they had been crammed into rooms with hundreds of others.

Gov. JB Pritzker and the Illinois Board of Higher Education on Monday announced that total enrollment in Illinois public universities increased for the second year in a row and hit its highest overall level in 10 years.

Broadview’s mayor has declared a civil emergency following a series of “serious and credible” threats made against village officials and increasing protests outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.

Attorneys representing a group of Chicago journalists and protesters claim immigration agents have repeatedly violated a sweeping injunction limiting the use of “riot control weapons,” less than a week after it was put into effect by a federal judge.

Diana Santillana Galeano, who had been held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention in Clay County, Indiana, was released Wednesday night, hours after a federal judge granted a habeas petition.

Abughazaleh and five others entered their not guilty pleas before a packed courtroom in the Dirksen Federal Building on Wednesday,

CPS Inspector General Philip Wagenknecht’s office on Wednesday published a new report on the district’s travel and overnight spending, which jumped from around $300,000 in fiscal year 2021 to nearly $8 million in 2024.

“This overbroad and unworkable injunction has no basis in law, threatens the safety of federal officers, and violates the separation of powers,” DOJ attorneys wrote in their appeal.

After daylong hearings, hours of witness testimony and high-profile rulings, Chicago’s Dirksen Federal Building has served as the battleground over the Trump administration’s wildly expanded immigration enforcement efforts throughout northern Illinois.

Attorneys representing detainees who claimed they were subjected to “inhumane” conditions at the Broadview ICE facility are asking for permission to inspect the facility.

Protesters, clergy members and others who say they’ve been directly impacted by a series of increasingly aggressive raids across Chicago and the suburbs will testify before a federal judge weighing whether to impose a lengthier ban on immigration agents’ use of chemical weapons like tear gas and pepper balls.

The MacArthur Justice Center and the ACLU of Illinois filed a lawsuit alleging ICE officials are denying detainees access to their attorneys and subjecting them to mistreatment and overcrowding. Federal officials have denied those accusations.

The suit, brought on behalf of Broadview detainees by the MacArthur Justice Center and the ACLU of Illinois, claims ICE officials have “cut off detainees from the outside world” by preventing them from making confidential phone calls to their lawyer or a prospective lawyer.

Ruben Torres Maldonado, who was detained by immigration agents earlier this month and whose teenage daughter is fighting cancer, is set to be released from custody after a judge on Thursday granted him a bond.

Chicago Public Schools leaders say new data shows elementary school students showed improvements in reading and math proficiency, while high schoolers increased their graduation rates while earning a record-high of more than $3 billion in scholarships this past year.

The DOJ filed the motion with the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday afternoon, hours before Bovino was set to appear at the Dirksen Federal Building to meet with U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis.

Mayor Brandon Johnson is lauding a reported move by Glock Inc. to discontinue its existing line of pistols that can be converted into illegal machine guns after the city filed suit against the firearms manufacturer.

A federal complaint unsealed Monday shows Nathan Griffin has been charged with a single count of assaulting a federal agent during the performance of their official duties.

Darren Bailey, the former state senator who is running to become Illinois’ next governor, announced early Thursday that his son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren were killed in a helicopter crash in Montana.

In a phone hearing Wednesday, attorneys agreed to extend a temporary restraining order halting that deployment sought by President Donald Trump until a final judgment is issued.

The conservative-dominated Supreme Court has handed Trump repeated victories in emergency appeals since he took office in January, after lower courts have ruled against him and often over the objection of the three liberal justices.

Chicago Ald. Jessie Fuentes is filing a federal claim and seeking damages, weeks after an immigration agent briefly handcuffed and detained her during a confrontation inside a Humboldt Park hospital.

Attorneys for the state of Illinois on Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reject a request by the Trump administration to allow the immediate deployment of 700 National Guard troops into Chicago.

Chicago is suing the Trump administration over “unlawful conditions” placed on federal grants that would force the city to abandon diversity, equity and inclusion efforts or risk losing that funding.

Chicago’s top federal judge announced plans to halt pay and some operations as the court system continues “feeling the pain” of the ongoing government shutdown.

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement official Russell Hott is exiting his post in Chicago and returning to Washington, a day after a federal judge in Illinois demanded he appear in court to answer questions about his agency’s continued use of tear gas in and around the city.