Fifty coaches carrying migrants have arrived in Chicago over the last week and authorities are bracing for up to 25 buses with around 1,250 people aboard to start arriving daily.
The deluge has caused huge problems and prompted backlash from residents in the city, which long ago ran out of shelter space and has been allowing asylum seekers to sleep in O’Hare Airport and police stations across the city.
In a scathing letter to President Biden Monday, Illinois’ Democrat Governor, J.B. Pritzker accused the feds of failing to provide adequate aid to the city — a sentiment echoed by numerous other American mayors as the crisis unfolds.
{snip}
“Most critically, the federal government’s lack of intervention and coordination at the border has created an untenable situation for Illinois.”
More than 17,000 migrants have already been shipped to Chicago from the border since August 2022 but the total is soaring with new arrivals according to Beatriz Ponce de Leon, Chicago’s deputy mayor for immigrant, migrant, and refugee rights.
About 9,800 migrants are currently living in the city’s shelters, while more than 3,000 more await placement.
More than $330 million had already been spent by the state on the crisis, Pritzker noted. Police station lobbies have become packed to the brim with desperate families sleeping on the floor, and they’ve spilled out onto the sidewalks where portable toilets have been placed.
Terminals in O’Hare and Midway airports have been set aside for hundreds of migrants to hunker down on blankets, carboard boxes, and carpeted floors while they wait for more permanent housing.
In September, Mayor Brandon Johnson finalized plans to erect a series of winterized tent camps and relocate the migrants living in police stations and airports there.
{snip}
“Finding out that we’re paying the same company responsible for shipping them here, to now be in charge of taking care of them, is like having the fireman both set the fire and extinguish it at the same time,” said Chicago City Council Alderman Ray Lopez, according to NBC Chicago.
He also questioned the viability of tents being able to withstand the demands of Chicago’s notoriously brutal winters.
“The fact that we’re spending $29 million on a tent city solution that probably won’t even function in subzero weather, Chicago style, is just amazing to me,” he said.
Plans to build shelters have also been met with resistance from residents of their intended neighborhoods.
One Tuesday, members of the Galewood neighborhood staged a protest against plans to erect a shelter in the Amundsen Fieldhouse, arguing it would displace programming for kids and teens the community has come to depend on.
“You want to take the little scraps of resources we have and put us at the bottom of the barrel? That’s not fair.” one woman said, according to Fox 32.
{snip}
The lawsuit says converting public spaces — including police station lobbies — into migrant shelters is not only detrimental to local communities, but violates humanitarian rights of migrants.
“If you call it a humanitarian effort, they shouldn’t be sleeping in police stations on the floor,” said organizer Brian Mullins.
* ORIGINAL ARTICLE:
https://nypost.com/2023/10/05/chicago-braces-for-buses-carrying-up-to-1250-migrants-daily/amp/
