Chicago City Wire

As part of Chicago City Wire's new "Illinois DOGE" series, we will profile Illinois "non-profit" organizations that receive all or an overwhelming majority of their funding from government/taxpayers to provide services the state also provides.

See previous profiles:

Indo-American Center, Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, TMH Mancave, the Black Researchers Collective, Chicago Therapy Collective, Organizing Neighborhoods For Equality Northside A/K/A "ONE Northside"

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Centro de Trabajadores Unidos

9850 S. Ewing, Chicago

East Side neighborhood 

Highlights:

• Centro de Trabajores Unidos ("United Workers Center") is a non-profit promising to "build immigrant and worker power by working to advance systemic change that promotes racial, gender and economic justice and stabilizes low-income immigrant communities and communities of color.”
• 2015 total revenue: $271,661
• 2022 total revenue: $1,102,292
• 2025: the State of Illinois appropriated the Centro de Trabajadores Unidos $4 million in state taxpayer grants

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Illinois taxpayers haven't just funded food, shelter and walking around money for tens of thousands of illegal aliens, who streamed to "sanctuary" Chicago when President Joe Biden opened the border and Governor J.B. Pritzker promised to block enforcement of federal immigration law in Illinois.

Pritzker also funneled millions of state tax dollars to non-profits like "Centro de Trabajores Unidos," which train illegal aliens on ways to avoid capture by federal immigration agents, and how to frustrate federal immigration courts.

Last year, Pritzker and the Illinois Legislature approved seven state grants totaling $4 million for the organization, nearly four times its entire $1.1 million 2022 budget.

Headquartered in Chicago's heavily-Mexican East Side neighborhood, on the far south side abutting the Indiana border, the city's "other CTU" claims its mission as to "build immigrant and worker power by working to advance systemic change that promotes racial, gender and economic justice and stabilizes low-income immigrant communities and communities of color.”

Translated: it provides "immigration services" to Chicago illegal aliens, which it proudly line items on its web site.

They include "removal defense," assisting illegals in how to make claims for asylum, and how to exploit a loophole in federal law that prevents deportation if you are a domestic violence victim.

"We provide the tools and services necessary to fight against deportations as well as offer legal screenings, representation and bilingual know your rights trainings," says the CTU Web site. "Through organizing and empowerment we work to we ensure that our neighbors are aware of the issues affecting their communities by recruiting and training promotores from neighborhoods throughout the southeast side and the south suburbs of Chicago."

CTU board president Maria Isabel Martinez is herself an immigration lawyer who, maybe not coincidentally, provides those exact same services to her clients from a law office six blocks away.

A May 9 CTU Facebook post advises employers facing an ICE raid to hide illegal aliens in "private areas" of their business.

"Private areas (kitchen, break room, etc.) where the workers are, ICE is not allowed to search," the CTU post said. "ICE will only be allowed in private areas unless they have the permission of the employer or person in charge and a valid warrant from a federal district judge."

"Because a valid warrant was provided does not mean agents are allowed to speak/question to other workers without the permission of the employer or person in charge," it said.

Fellow board member Artemia Arreola is "community organizer" who works as political director for pro-open borders group, the Illinois Coalition for the Rights of Immigrants and Refugees, which says it "builds power and organizes for justice and equity for all."

Arreola is co-founder of the "March 10th Movement," which organizes rallies in favor of illegal immigration to the U.S.

CTU staff attended a May 1 anti-illegal alien deportation rally in the Loop, demanding "justice, dignity and protections for all!"

"The people united, will never be defeated," read a CTU post on Facebook.

"Violence Prevention" and "Violence interruption"

Like hundreds of other South Side non-profits receiving large state taxpayer grants, "stopping violence" without police was a primary stated justification for CTU's seven awards.

That's even though the group makes no pretenses about the fact that it does nothing of the sort.

Last year, CTU received three separate grants of $250,000 each from the Illinois Department of Human Services and forth for $250,000 from the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) that were "for violence interruption, community development and operational expenses and administrative costs" and "administrative services associated with violence prevention programs, youth employment programs, and operational expenses."

It received $3 million more to renovate its 3,080 square foot office, which it recieved in 2014 when the building fell into foreclosure.

From the state"s Build Illinois bond program, CTU received three separate $1 million grants for "for costs associated with building aquation and other capital improvements," "for costs associated with capital improvements," and "for costs associated with infrastructure improvements."

The organization received its IRS approval as a non-profit in 2011, when revenue was just $103,205.

CTU originally lobbied suburbs to pass "Welcoming City" ordinances that promised not to deport illegal aliens arrested for crime by their police departments. 

Centro de Trabajores Unidos, Revenue by Year

Year	Revenue
2022	$1,102,292
2021	$1,348,901
2020	$1,231,908
2019	$613,748
2018	$398,202
2017	$459,412
2016	$354,108
2015	$271,661
2014	$289,324
2013	$186,592
2012	$109,694
2011	$103,205

Source: Internal Revenue Service 990 filings