Immigrant couple to get $80K in damages from former landlords who threatened to call ICE

A judge found that a pair of Chicago landlords violated Illinois state law when they threatened to call federal immigration authorities on former tenants.

The national Latino legal and civil rights organization representing an immigrant couple who sued their former landlords in Chicago for threatening to call ICE on them said this week the tenants will be awarded more than $80,000 in damages, after a judge found the landlords violated an Illinois state law.

According to the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, better known as MALDEF, this is the first case to reach a judgment under the Illinois Immigrant Tenant Protection Act of 2019.

The law bans landlords from discriminating against or harassing a tenant based on their actual or perceived immigration status. It prohibits landlords from reporting or threatening to report a tenant to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for intimidation or retaliation purposes, and also bars landlords from evicting tenants solely because of their immigration status.

“Such unscrupulous conduct is appropriately unlawful under Illinois state law,” Thomas A. Saenz, MALDEF president and general counsel, said in a statement Monday.

On Feb. 19, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Catherine A. Schneider ordered landlords Marco Antonio Contreras and Denise Contreras to pay damages, attorneys’ fees and costs for violating the Immigrant Tenant Protection Act to former tenants Maria Maltos Escutia and Gabriel Valdez Garcia.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/immigrant-tenants-lawsuit-landlord-threat-ice-rcna195179

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