IL prioritizes $3.2B for illegal immigrants, leaves working families behind: Legislator

A state legislator says a proposal to allocate $50 million in state funding for after-school programs has been sidelined due to state spending on illegal immigrants.

During a news conference this week, Manager of Policy and Advocacy at Family Focus Brenda Solorzano said a $50 million investment would provide direct support to their organization and others like it.

“Groups that work tirelessly every day, maximizing every dollar to create safe and enriching environments for youth and families,” said Solorzano. “After-school programs support students academically, socially and emotionally and just as importantly they keep students safe point blank.”

The three highest-paid employees at Family Focus collectively earn more than $700,000 in compensation, according to data analyzed by ProPublica.

State Rep. Adam Niemerg, R-Dieterich, said schools in his district have expressed the need for afterschool services.

“Then you see $3.2 billion spent on illegal immigrants here in the state of Illinois. I have working-class families calling me asking, ‘Hey Adam, why are we spending $3.2 billion on illegals when we can't even fund our afterschool program?’” said Niemerg. “Here we are in the last couple days of session, running over a billion-dollar shortfall that we're aware of right now, $3.2 billion has been spent on illegals, and we don't even have the money to shore up the federal dollars on the state side to help our own working-class Illinoisans. It's really a shame.”

House Bill 3082, which provides $50 million in grants to support afterschool programs and community schools, hasn’t moved out of committee.

Niemerg said another bill, House Bill 3081, is a bill to correct a mistake.

Susan Stanton, executive director of ACT Now Illinois, is urging the creation of a coordinated policy making body to better manage after-school funding. Her call follows a 2023 error by the Illinois State Board of Education, which over-awarded $42.7 million in federal aid, leaving many programs unfunded.

“Many after-school programs across the state had to shut down. To address this, we proposed additional funding in the state budget and the creation of an OST [Out-of-School Time] Council to better monitor those funds. In fact, $50 million was included in the state budget last fiscal year but was never released,” said Stanton during a news conference. “It will ensure cross-agency collaboration, streamline funding, and build a long-term vision for statewide OST infrastructure.”

Niemerg said Republicans supported the bill because of a funding error. HB 3081 creates a council to better monitor spending.

“The state made a mistake in allocating federal dollars, and I’ve had a lot of schools in my district come to me saying, ‘We have after school programs, we have working families trying to make a living, and we need these programs.’ So it became a situation where this funding was put on the back burner,” said Niemerg.