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July 3 0, 2015 • $1 .0 0
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Arkush: Ryan Pace, John Fox kick off new regime / C1
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Budget issues halt job programs Dollars for summer internships, worker training in county stuck because of state impasse By EMILY K. COLEMAN ecoleman@shawmedia.com WOODSTOCK – A worker placed with McHenry-based Fabrik Molded Plastics didn’t get to finish his summer internship, a ripple effect from the continuing state budget impasse. The state’s failure to pass a budget has meant federal grant
dollars funneled through the state but meant for the McHenry County Workforce Network are stuck, said the director of its board, Jeffery Poynter. That means the agency has had to stop issuing vouchers for worker training or classes to prepare for a high school equivalency degree, can’t reimburse businesses that paid upfront for employee training
and had to pull its interns from businesses across the county, he said. “With all of the media attention, I wasn’t surprised,” Fabrik President Keith Wagner said. “Certainly, it’s upsetting because it’s a good program.” This was the second year Fabrik participated in the program, which starts with a series of company visits followed
by a drafting day where businesses and potential interns pick each other for a summer internship. Last year, the company hired one of its interns, said Wagner, who has received offers to relocate the company to Alabama, Indiana or Kentucky. “It’s an opportunity to see what the person is about and find out if their skill set match-
es the company’s needs,” he said. “And it’s a good opportunity for them to, perhaps, find a career path that they were unaware of.” The McHenry County Workforce Network also offers reimbursement for training in a wide array of areas, including accounting, CNC machining, health care, information technology and com-
mercial driving at places such as McHenry County College, First Institute in Crystal Lake, COMNet Group in Lake in the Hills and Symbol Training Institute in Skokie. The agency had to pull the plug Wednesday morning on reimbursements for a brandnew industrial maintenance
See PROGRAMS, page A6
Kirk gets backing from GOP leadership
LOCAL ADVOCATES FOR HAITI SPEAK ON IMMIGRATION ISSUES
Senator criticized by campaign donor By JOHN O’CONNOR The Associated Press
Photos by Chelsea McDougall – cmcdougall@shawmedia.com
A driver takes volunteers from McHenry-based Catholic Assistance Missions through the streets of Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. Local advocates fear immigration policies in the Dominican Republic will overburden an already weak Haitian infrastructure.
Dominican policies concern area groups with ties to Haiti By CHELSEA McDOUGALL cmcdougall@shawmedia.com As an immigration crisis unfolds in the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, local Haiti organizations and ministries are concerned about the strain policies in the Dominican Republic could put on Haiti’s already fragile infrastructure. The Dominican Republic has been under international scrutiny in recent years for immigration policies that tend to affect mostly Haitians and people of Haitian descent, who tend to be darker skinned than most Dominicans and often find themselves victims of racial discrimination. In the latest action, the Dominican Republic’s Constitutional Court in 2013 ruled children born in the country to noncitizens did not qualify for automatic citizenship because their migrant parents – most of whom are Haitians – were “in transit.” The Dominican government said it will deport noncitizens who didn’t submit applications to establish legal residency before a June 17 deadline. Nearly 290,000 of the estimated 524,000 migrants in the country – the majority of them Hai-
A street market is seen in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. tians – face deportation from the Dominican Republic under the policy that some have called “racially discriminatory.” Local advocates fear the further burden that the influx of soon-to-be stateless individuals will put on an already weak country. Haiti is continuously ranked the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The two countries that share the Caribbean island have a fraught history, with generations of Haitians crossing into the Dominican Republic to take low-wage jobs in agriculture, construction or house
cleaning. They’ve also encountered discrimination and periodic crackdowns. “This has been going on for 200 years,” McHenry resident Jon Petersen said. “There is this tremendous hate for each other.” Petersen has been traveling to Haiti for 20 years and is vice president of Haiti’s Children Inc., a nonprofit based in Pell Lake, Wisconsin, with ties to McHenry County. Justin Smith of Woodstock is president of the McHenry-based Catholic Assistance Missions, a nonprofit organization that oper-
ates a school in Haiti, among other charitable contributions to the country. He fears the effects an influx of people would have on the poorer side of the island. The Dominican government hasn’t begun the deportations, but the government there said nearly 40,000 people have left as of July 6. “Haiti, which is already overburdened as it is, is looking at all these people coming back, and these people have lived in the Dominican Republic, raised families there and worked there,” Smith said. “What [Haiti] has as far as infrastructure will be even more overburdened.” Petersen, in a separate interview, echoed what Smith said. “They’re being deported back to Haiti, a country they’ve never been to and don’t know anything about,” Petersen said. “With no family and no money, they’re going to be forced to the street. … Haiti is not equipped to handle that.” Although they share an island, the Dominican Republic is in significantly better financial shape, having transformed itself into a tourist destination. Some wellknown advocates are calling for
See HAITI, page A6
LOCAL NEWS
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Health fair
New store
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Event offers low-cost physicals, dental exams for kids / A3
Shoe retailer DSW plans to open McHenry location in September / A4
Three-day McHenry festival brings in big names / Play
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SPRINGFIELD – Illinois Republicans rallied around first-term U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk on Wednesday after a top fundraiser briefly suggested the moderate elected to Barack Obama’s former seat should abandon his re-election bid due to a recent series of public gaffes. Kirk, who suffered a debilitating stroke in 2012 but is eyeing a second term next year in one of the nation’s most competitive Sen. Mark Senate races, was Kirk widely criticized last month after being heard on an open microphone calling South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham a “bro with no ho” because the GOP presidential contender is unmarried. Last week, in criticizing the nuclear deal with Iran, Kirk told a radio station that Obama was trying “to get nukes to Iran.” Although Kirk endured criticism from Democrats after making those and other statements, Republicans rushed to his defense Wednesday after one of their own raised concerns about the impact Kirk’s comments could have on the party’s election fortunes. “I do not believe he will be a U.S. senator in 2017 and, as top of the ticket, he could cause collateral damage” to other Republicans on the ballot, Chicago businessman and campaign donor Ronald Gidwitz told Crain’s Chicago Business, referencing what he called “misstatements” by Kirk. Gidwitz, a former candidate for Illinois governor, later retracted the statement and said Kirk was the best candidate for the job. He declined to elaborate when contacted Wednesday by The Associated Press. Kirk also previously suggested that federal bureaucrats were collecting personal data on Supreme Court justices and members of Congress. And, last winter, he called for putting “a number of coffins” outside Democrats’ offices if a terrorist attack resulted from a government shutdown over a budget dispute. Nick Kachiroubas, a DePaul
See KIRK, page A6
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