Recent deportation raids targeting undocumented immigrants around the country have raised concerns in the Illinois River community of Beardstown, where a local meatpacking plant has attracted many immigrant workers. University of Illinois planning professor Faranak Miraftab has made a study of Beardstown, and the JBS meatpacking plant there that employs workers from Mexico, West Africa and other places.

Dakar is home base for my daughter Jane, a UI junior majoring in Global Studies who is studying in Senegal for the academic year. So that’s where our family’s two-week visit with her over the recent holidays began, and where I had my first opportunity to see African birds.