Immigration Supporters Press For Action in Wyandotte County

immigration rally in Kansas City, MO in 2019

Stymied in Roeland Park, immigrant-rights advocates are looking to gain a foothold in Wyandotte County in their effort to make Kansas more “safe and welcoming.” Spearheaded by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Kansas, along with various other organizations, the coalition wants localities to issue their own municipal IDs and to set clear guidelines…

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A Clash of the Way In

Illustration showing apartment building with possible bomb or explosive situation

Rachel Miskec watches the news each night and worries she’ll see an apartment fire in Kansas City, Kansas. “If something bad happens, I know someone is going to ask us when did you go into [the apartment] last,” said Miskec, the coordinator of the rental license program for the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and…

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Changed Locks: Getting Evicted in Wyandotte

Jelisa Bernardo collects her belongings

It takes two minutes for the woman in the wheelchair to roll in front of Judge R. Wayne Lawson. It only takes another two minutes for her to be legally evicted. “You have to leave, just not today,” Lawson tells her. The plaintiff’s lawyer asks her to wait for him in the hallway. He still…

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How’d We Get This Data? See the Human Side of Records Analysis

Research intern Ryan Hennessy works on a data visualization that came from information he collected over 44 days in the Wyandotte County Courthouse.

44 days. That’s how long it took our research intern to obtain all the eviction information for Wyandotte County. Across that month and a half, Flatland’s Ryan Hennessy spent about six hours a day combing eviction records the only place they were available: on one of three public computers on the first floor of the…

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