>> hello and thanks for joining us on Chicago tonight.

I'm Brandis Friedman.

Here's what we're looking at.

We're live from Springfield with the latest on measures that address rising insurance rates, AI regulation and more.

Confusion over a new policy shift from the Trump administration requiring most green card applicants to apply from their home countries.

>> This is not just about you saying into team.

This is our history.

>> And art music and movement will take you inside an exhibit exploring the evolution of bring it on.

First off tonight, the family of 13 year-old Adam Toledo is again filing a wrongful death lawsuit against the city.

This time in federal court.

>> The case had been set for trial in Cook County last month, but stalled as attorneys filed dozens of pretrial motions.

It led the attorney for Adams parents, Elizabeth and Marco Toledo to drop that lawsuit promising to refile Toledo was shot and killed by a Chicago police Officer.

Eric Stillman after a brief foot chase in Little Village back in 2021, the Toledo family attorney says, quote, Adam's death was not the product of an unavoidable split second decision, but rather the foreseeable result of a continuous series of escalating tactical choices, policy violations failures in de-escalation failures in supervision and systemic institutional deficiencies that the city of Chicago had been warned about for years.

Attorneys for the city declined to comment on pending litigation.

Tuesday would have been Adams 19th birthday.

Delegation of Chicagoans including Mayor Brandon Johnson, visited the Vatican today to meet Pope Leo Chicago.

Reporters on the scene say the mayor and the pope discussed the impacts of Midway Blitz, war reparations for slavery.

And on a lighter note, the Cubs and White Sox which we already know where the pope's loyalties lie there right.

>> Also on the agenda and invitation for the pope to return to Chicago and lead a mass in Grant Park as Pope John Paul.

The second did back in 1979.

>> Alanis Morrissette Naas Iggy Pop Patti Smith.

Just a few of the performers that music lovers can hear this year's Riot fest.

The annual music festival returns to Douglas Park September 18th through the 20th, the family-friendly event, which include the carnival with rides games and attractions is also including Chicago legend Tom Skilling, the former WGN meteorologist will be on site to deliver the weekend's weather forecast after a remote cameo appearance last year.

Tickets are already on sale.

Douglas Park residents received free tickets for more events happening this summer in the Chicago area.

Be sure to check out our Web site W t Tw Dot com slash festivals.

Nic Bloomberg joins us live from Springfield as the deadline to pass legislation quickly approaches.

>> Chicago tonight is made possible in part by the Alexandra and John Nichols family.

The Pope Brothers Foundation.

And the support of these donors.

>> With the clock ticking on Springfield, Spring session.

Lawmakers are just hustling to pass a budget to negotiate a Bears stadium deal.

They're also working through a slew of other legislation that's trying to make its way through the General Assembly before the Sunday deadline.

Nic Lumber joins us from the capital with a rundown of the major items, including some that the governor is eager to see passed.

Nick.

>> That's right.

You know, brand is for a lot of us.

Ai is no doubt one of the major concerns on our mind state lawmakers.

They are no different.

That's why the Illinois General Assembly just passed new AI regulations that some experts are calling the toughest in the nation.

The bill just passed yesterday and now heads to the governor's desk.

The goal here is transparency.

Measure calls on AI developers to explain how the company accounts for major risks, the metrics it uses to determine what its models can do, as well as how it handles safety incidence.

Among other things, it also mandates third-party audits to make sure that those AI firms are actually following the frameworks.

They come up with now, while this bill have the support of major AI players like OpenAI and traffic, the American Innovators Network, that's a group representing AI startups and entrepreneurs.

They've urged state lawmakers to rethink this measure.

Quote, the Illinois General Assembly has taken a misguided approach to AI regulation by establishing a burdensome audit requirement to assess AI companies based on auditing standards that do not yet exist effectively handing the power to write Illinois lot of which after accounting firm gets hired, it goes on whether we choose to acknowledge it or not.

Policymakers are legislating in an arena dominated by trillion-dollar companies is a real difference between a start-up that marginally clears the 500 million dollar threshold.

And in enterprise doing billions and business every week, I think most of us would agree.

500 million dollars still a good chunk of change.

Despite that pushback, Governor JB Pritzker says he plans to sign the bill.

There are also some other anti bills still under consideration.

Things like regulations for chatbots use for mental health care customer service as well as some restrictions on arrives, should say are reporting requirements for the use of AI in school.

>> And Nic, there's also a couple of other measures that we've been following that have the governor's tells about those.

>> That's right.

Pritzker has also announced that he will sign bills passed yesterday.

These would give the state's Department of Insurance the right to reject auto or home rate increases that have been deemed excessive.

That's something that advocates have long called for a given skyrocketing insurance premiums.

Another item with the governor's backing would create the children's Online Safety Act.

Now, this one would mandate age verification.

It would prevent auto play media for minors and it would block notifications to minors between 10:00PM and 07:00AM.

And we heard about this from the governor back in February in his state of the state speech, he called that social media platforms for creating mental health problems in teens and for contributing to misinformation and polarization.

That bill still needs to pass the state Senate before King go back to the House for a final okay.

>> And Nic, there's also a measure aimed at protecting the privacy of patients who are seeking abortion care.

Tell us about that.

>> That's right.

As we reported, Illinois has become a major destination for patients after the rollback of abortion rights following the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision in 2022, according to the research and advocacy organization, the Guttmacher Institute about one in 4 patients seeking care in a state other than where they live have come to Illinois for that abortion care.

Now, this bill is expected to pass the state Senate.

It requires health information exchanges to come up with policies that essentially segregate that health care information related to abortion care as well as gender dysphoria and in most all instances, it would prevent the release of that health information to any out of state entity.

It would also block and electronic health network from telling providers and the other state that that information has been withheld.

Now, that one will still need to go back to the Illinois House for a final.

Okay.

It does.

In fact pass brand few more days in Springfield.

Nick, thank you.

>> And you can read next full story on our website.

It is all the W T Tw dot com slash news.

Immigrants looking to get a green card may be surprised to learn about a change in procedure returning to their home country to apply.

That's the policy policy shift recently announced by the U.S.

Citizenship and Immigration Services Agency.

U.S.

C I S is the change restores the original intent of us green card laws.

But immigration attorneys argue it up years of precedent and signals a broader crackdown on legal immigration, pathways here to help us understand our mayor.

A test.

I an immigration lawyer with the firm Hughes Soho, Piers Resnick.

And in limited and Shannon, Shepard and immigration lawyer with the firm Immigration Attorneys, LLP.

Thanks to both for joining us.

I'm Shannon Shepperd.

Let's start with sort of outlining the green card application process and how it typically works.

What is a green card and what are the steps that usually takes to get one?

>> Thank you.

The green card is the lawful permanent resident status that foreign nationals can attain while remaining in the United States.

Usually for decades, Congress for decades ago.

Sorry, Congress initiated this law which allows for certain foreign nationals to apply for a green card without having to return to their home countries.

The process usually applies to either foreign nationals who are employed here on employment.

The says that are temporary and their companies want them to become permanent or to family based petitions, spouses of U.S.

citizens being the most common and is a green cards sort of a long-term status is.

Is that something that you can have Yes, it is indefinite.

The green card itself expires after 10 years and you have to apply to renew it.

But the status itself does not expire unless some issue with maintaining the status on what could be said that.

But in this one expires after 10 years it is it's typically you don't have to go to your home country to make that application.

Correct.

You can usually do within states.

>> Correct.

If you are either here lawfully or married to a U.S.

citizen and you entered lawfully.

>> Then you can apply for adjustment of status without having to return to the country.

>> Know your breakdown, this policy change for us.

And what did you Yes, announced last week.

>> So on Friday, us yes, released this policy.

Memos say that adjustment of being able to get your green card stateside as an extraordinary form of discretionary relief.

So it's something that where it's available, individual should concert meaning that should go to a consulate or embassy to get their great card instead of applying stateside.

And this is just up ending decades of statutory interpretation of case loft practice because I was never the case.

The case law actually says that if an individual meets the requirements of adjusting status of meaning there's nothing that prevents them from getting a green card generally adjustment of status should be granted.

So what they are saying that's actually not a factual representation of the law.

What's your reaction to this move?

It's just another way that this administration is going against illegal immigration.

They don't want people to be able to stay in the United States lawfully and they're trying every path possible to be able to prevent people from staying here with their families.

I'm Shannon.

Give us a sense of the scope.

How many green card applicants do we think there are in the U.S.

how many people could be affected by this?

So it's it's hundreds of thousands.

>> In 2024, I believe there were about half a million green cards granted and then number rose in 2025.

So this is a huge population that would be affected by this policy.

How would you use the I S go about enforcing a change like this, you know, and could.

>> A green card applicant risk being deported if they just showed up for that application.

>> These are things that us yes has not made clear through their is what they're going to do for say someone who already has a pending adjustment of status application.

Can they still go?

We've we've just been hurt hearing anecdotally this week that officers at the immigration office are asking additional questions such as why can't you just go to your home country and the consular process, but no decisions have been made yet on these cases.

So we just don't know how it can impact those with Artie pending cases and in the future will be able to even apply.

>> What's that tell you when you hear that that applicants are hearing different may be strange questions.

>> It seems like the questions are designed to bring out.

>> Either some flaw in there history some way to not exercise the discretion that us normally would exercise in allowing them to stay here while they go through this process.

>> Mayor, what you heard from your clients or the interest they worried?

>> Yeah, absolutely.

Especially clients already had their applications understood the law to be a certain way at the time that they applied and that they pay their fees and the rules are just being change halfway through.

It's really unfair.

And it's creating a lot of uncertainty and it's really a pending peoples plans for their future.

And how long process typically take me to people already have their applications in.

I mention they're waiting for some time.

Yes, a really varies.

We have seen some that there are significant delays have multiple years for for the most part.

If I had a client coming to me last week, I would say within 9 to 12 months we should have a decision on your case channel.

What are you hearing from your point?

>> Much of the same.

Everyone is is very confused by the policy.

They're very panicked.

They're worried about it.

Like you said, being subject to deportation, even though they were trying to follow the law and doing the right thing.

So the you know, this.

Policy memo seems to trying punish people who've actually done the right thing the whole Mayor us?

as you mentioned, they said that this change is consistent with longstanding immigration law.

They write, quote.

>> We are returning to the original intent of the law to ensure aliens navigate our nation's immigration system properly.

It also calls the adjustment of status.

Like you said, an extraordinary form of relief what do you make out of that with?

Is the agency correctly arguing original intent of the law?

>> No, not at all.

So, you know, about 1.1 million individuals have been granted green cards in 2023. of those around 600,000 did a thread just status stateside in around 500,000 3 consular processing so in their home countries.

Yes, so the majority of people were going green cards have actually done it through the adjustment of status process, calling it a loophole that people are trying to circumvent the proper way of doing it is just absolutely absurd.

The law is very clear that there are pathways for people to obtain their green cards while they are here in the United States.

And there's no specific preference in the law for individuals to go abroad.

So absolutely not based.

So it sounds like the law doesn't say much governing green card issuance about where you're supposed to apply from.

>> No.

So the law clearly says that individuals who are eligible are able to apply stateside, including spouses, be U.S.

citizens, parents of U.S.

citizens, children at minor children U.S.

citizens and certain employment base categories.

But there is no need for them to travel abroad and that there's clear congressional intent in part because Congress understands that people have lives here.

They have employment.

They have their families and it really that's a huge barrier for them.

If they have to travel abroad and they're the time and the expense to have to do that, especially since lot of people aren't even eligible to go to their home country to be able to get their green cards.

If you're here unlawfully for more than a year, if you travel abroad, you trigger a 10 year or that you're not able to return.

So individuals who are married to U.S.

citizens, for example, and overstay their visa from when they were very young.

This process isn't actually viable for them.

They would have to apply for a waiver multiple years.

The process will probably years or more.

Shannon, U.S.

U.S.

is that there could be exceptions to this policy change in, quote, extraordinary circumstances.

>> What are extraordinary circumstances?

>> Well, that's another thing they failed to define when they issued this memo.

typically when someone does need a waiver, like was mentioning, they look at hardship factors.

So if it's a family base case, you know, their family ties, their length of residents here, their employment.

you know, if there's any medical conditions in the family, things like that, this memo did mention showing that you at of national benefit or economic benefits.

The United States we can speculate that might mean that employment base petitions would be considered within that factor.

But we just don't know yet.

And so it's really hard advise our clients as to what kind of things they should be doing are gathering in order to to avail of this process.

>> There have also been reports of months long delays for the renewal process for Deferred Action Childhood Arrivals or DACA recipients.

Does the Green Card announcement?

Does this represent?

Do you think a larger shift by the administration to sort of go after legal pathways of immigration?

>> Yes, definitely.

There has been a just a systematic chipping away at the processes that were previously available.

So Doc is a great example.

Those people who have brought their here as children and before we were seeing renewals in 2 to 3 months now, it's 7, 8 months.

And so their status expires during that time.

And that puts them in a in a really awful position.

>> To that point, are there methods of sort of legal immigration that you're you know, sort of changes happened to or efforts that are better.

diminishing those efforts basically.

>> Yet the one that comes to mind is temporary protected status.

Tps, which is available for people who the Department of Homeland Security has determined that home country is not safe to return to either due to poor national natural disaster.

Something like that.

>> And >> Department of Homeland Security is trying slowly to scale back on those protections for people who who are in that.

That situation, it would seem to me also that like you mentioned, 1.0, 1 million people in they are theirs.

>> You know, there are only so many people for whom are eligible for a green card process anyway, right to it seems like.

This is the best route to go after big Does it hit a large group of people who are attempting to stay in the United States for, you know, either to be a family or to work.

Yeah.

So by definition, these are people who either have employment base ties or family based eyes in the U.S.

So going after this subset of individuals really doesn't make any sense.

What is mostly going to happen is that people, you know, are going through this process.

If the scope of the policy memo is really as broad as it could be based on what they're saying, this is going to funnel a lot of people in to remove all proceedings having to see an immigration judge where they will have to read.

The judge will revisit their application determine whether they're eligible for adjustment of status or craft show.

The 2 of you will be keeping an eye on this for your clients.

And just in parents, that's Ty Inc.

And Shepard, thanks to both create it.

Thank you.

Thank you having us.

Up next, a new exhibition explores the history of reggaeton.

A new contemporary art exhibition explores the evolution and spiritual roots of what are arguably the Caribbean's 2 most popular music genres.

>> Dance hall and reggaeton.

It's a showcase that can move you both emotionally and physically as it takes you through the history reporter Joanna Hernandez has more.

>> It's a participatory space in the beginning.

I really wanted to do a lot.

I dream was like I went to a club in the museum in that because this feels like a cause this is the closest I got 2 o'clock and got a lot settle.

Yates is a curator of a new exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art called Dancing The Revolution from Dance Hall to take it We are sitting on a artwork by blue Curry and that there's other art work site you consent so people can actually have conversations from the moment you step into the exhibition.

You met with speakers, photographs, artwork in video installations showing the evolution in spirit of dance culture, both hall and pay it our musical genre has come from working class communities, marginalized communities.

Her passion to explore this topic sparked from the protests that erupted in Puerto Rico in the summer of 2019.

It's about how we hold these different contradictions from Mike Joy to green celebration and struggling with systems are not incompatible that we can pay its own protest in the streets to demand the ousting of a governor.

>> And we can also go to party and dance and those things I think come together in a really potent its way through pictures and art installations.

The exhibit takes people on a journey beginning in Jamaica.

Exploring practice is rooted in black Atlantic.

>> And it's a volusia of expression.

>> One thing that important to understand is that lineage of protest in the Caribbean has always included music and dance.

So has a very different lineage and the United States or Europe, for example.

So going back to Jamaica, specially taking sand.

I started to do research on dance hall, but also on sound system.

Culture, which is really where these musical genre spark creativity, things stand.

>> Each room tells a story of how the beets we love emerge through.

Sounds found across the Caribbean, including Panama.

>> Okay.

And minus started because of the pandemic.

And now a geopolitical moment when West Indian workers and Jamaican workers were brought to Panama to construct the pandemic.

now and with them, they've got the records and with the records they started singing on the instrumental besides and started translating the lyrics from English to Spanish.

And I think that is such a fascinating way to think about music has migration story.

is a personal project that of the settled Gates as Re connects her to her upbringing in remember that I had a mix tape that was a copy of a mix tape.

That was a copy of another tape.

So I grew up with this music and at the time was criminalized by the governor by and Europe.

>> From its underground route they get on has evolved into a global phenomenon.

>> With generations of artists paving the way for stars like Bad bunny.

His work is very political.

And I think that he carries the voices.

And the spirit, the social and political histories.

He's giving voice to that.

And also carrying that message to a global audience.

>> More than 42 artist are part of the showcase a vision that took 3 years to come to life.

>> One of main takeaways, I want people to go with is that it's on us, not just entertainment.

It is.

you have to really be social political and spiritual history that dates back to the Colonial era.

>> For Chicago tonight, I'm joined on this.

>> The exhibition runs at the Museum of Contemporary Art until September.

20th, Illinois residents get free entry on Tuesdays when the museum also hosts a karaoke night.

We're back right after this.

>> Reflecting the people perspectives that make up This story is part of Chicago tonight.

Not the >> And that's our show for this Thursday night.

The weekend is quickly approaching.

So if you're still looking for things to check out our website for our Chicago Summer Festival guide.

It is all at W T Tw dot com slash festivals and join us tomorrow night at 5.37, for the week in review.

Now for all of us here in Chicago tonight, Brandis Friedman, thank you for watching.

Stay healthy and safe and have a good night.

>> Closed captioning is made possible by Clifford and Clifford Law offices, a Chicago personal injury and wrongful death for that supports educational initiatives in the legal profession.