Chicago will be on the global stage for the Democratic National Convention and volunteers who’ve been working with migrants in the city are on high alert.
Service providers and city officials worry that Republican governors will reignite their strategy to send busloads of asylum seekers to Chicago in attempts to embarrass Democrats over failed immigration policy. They anticipate needing upwards of 25,000 beds in the lead up to the August convention.
“The city is maintaining sufficient bed capacity in our existing temporary shelters and preparing sites in the event that new temporary emergency shelters need to be activated on short notice,” said a city spokesperson.
Since August 2022, more than 45,000 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, have been flown and bused to Chicago, mostly from Texas, leading to a humanitarian crisis that continues to unfold.
But in recent weeks, no buses have arrived.
The slowdown is in part due to a sharp decline in the number of crossings at the U.S-Mexico border. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott isn’t communicating directly with local officials but he publicly threatens to keep sending asylum seekers to sanctuary cities like Chicago.
“Those buses will continue to roll until we finally secure our border,” Abbott said last month on the main stage of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Despite the downward trends, local nonprofits are also bracing for additional migrants to arrive leading up to the start of convention . Other service providers are in a state of watch and wait.
“I do think an infrastructure is in place in the event that the surges are to happen,” said Aimee Hilado, a University of Chicago professor who specializes in mental health and trauma among asylum-seekers and other immigrants. “[Republicans] wanted the migrant crisis to be a black eye on our city, they wanted to see us really being tested."
But some advocates are disappointed as to how much of the focus is on the week of the DNC — triggering a response that’s reactionary and largely driven by optics.
“It's really disappointing if you are putting so much importance on this convention over the actual lives of immigrant families, over the lives of Chicagoans that have been experiencing homelessness for a really long time already,” said Cynthia Brito, a community organizer who was part of a West Side coalition that helped move about 200 migrants from Chicago into near west suburban Oak Park.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has repeatedly accused Texas Gov. Greg Abbott of intentionally causing chaos.
“Never in the history of America, a local municipality has been asked to establish resettlement for migrants,” Johnson told a group of business leaders and immigration advocates in April.
Last winter, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker called the situation a “manufactured crisis.” He said Abbott was “wholly uncooperative” for dropping families off — many wearing shorts, t-shirts and sandals amid freezing temperatures — without communication miles away from designated welcoming centers.
Months before that, city officials had to quickly open temporary shelters and figure out how to feed thousands of asylum seekers, many of whom camped out in tents outside police stations for weeks before shelter beds became available. At its peak, 15,000 asylum seekers had packed 28 migrant shelters across Chicago. The city has so far spent more than $400 million.
The situation has tested the city’s social infrastructure at all levels. It hasn’t been easy. There have been a series of missteps in the process.
City officials have been highly criticized for hiring private companies like Favorite Healthcare Staffing to manage shelters where many migrants have complained about mistreatment, racist remarks, bad food and a lack of cleanliness.
Last December, a 5-year-old boy died from sepsis at a Pilsen shelter — that same facility has been in the spotlight for being overcrowded and unsanitary. Earlier this year it was the source of a measles outbreak that infected more than 50 migrants.
Some advocates say these are the results of implementing cost saving measures without much community involvement.
“The shelter situation is horrible,” Brito said. “These … are not conditions that any family should be in. We know what happens in the shelters. There [are] diseases, there's no privacy. There's just continued dehumanization of the immigrant family.”
State and city officials have repeatedly said they are committed to supporting wraparound services for asylum seekers. In June, the Illinois Department of Human Services announced additional migrant shelter capacity that included two facilities on the South Side — one in Hyde Park and another one near Midway Airport. The state funds an additional shelter in the Little Village neighborhood.
While convention activities are downtown and at the United Center, some lawmakers on the Southwest Side say their communities are impacted.
State Rep. Angie Guerrero-Cuellar, D-Chicago, and state Sen. Mike Porfirio, D-Burbank, criticized state officials for lack of planning. Their districts have two migrant shelters, on South Pulaski Road and South Cicero Avenue.
“What's going to happen when the Chicago police … is sent to the DNC and we have a situation here in the district? We're not going to have enough manpower,” Guerrero-Cuellar said. She said CPD's 8th District, one of the largest in the city, doesn’t have enough police officers to address the safety needs of her constituents.
Residents have complained to her about trash and unsafe conditions for migrant families who are often selling drinks and snacks in between dangerous intersections.
In a statement, Daisy Contreras, a spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Human Services said Guerrero-Cuellar and Porfirio were briefed.
“That's why we’ve … implemented the changes to our shelter policies (i.e. new curfew times for residents) they requested. The state also sought law enforcement and community feedback to ensure the appropriate resources were leveraged in each community with a state-supported shelter,” the statement said.
During the initial influx of migrants, many ended up housed inside Chicago police stations; this family of three, with another on the way, were staying in the lobby of the 16th District police station, 5151 N Milwaukee Ave., last year. When enough shelter space was available, police stations were mostly emptied, but now shelter space is at a premium.
Scott Olson/Getty
Aside from public safety, health care services providers in three of the busiest hospitals near the United Center on the West Side are preparing for the worst, especially if Abbott acts on its threats of busing more asylum seekers ahead of the DNC.
"We also are concerned about our migrants and the potential population that may come to our area and we are working with our health equity team,” said Shonda Morrow, interim chief operating officer at Rush University Medical Center during an interview with WBEZ’s Reset.
As Johnson and Pritzker brace for the potential calibrated onslaught of buses during the convention, advocates say hosting the DNC provides local elected officials with an opportunity to advocate for immigration reform.
“We need to make sure … that the Democratic platform continues to include welcoming immigrants, continues to include the need to find a pathway for legalization, and even potentially how new immigrants can arrive and come into the U.S.,” said Eréndira Rendón, vice president of immigrant justice with the Resurrection Project.
Other experts say access to affordable housing is also a hot button issue.
To free up space in city-run shelters, the city began rolling out a 60-day stay policy in the spring. Thousands of other asylum seekers have found apartments in South and West side neighborhoods or left the city. By the end of July more than 5,500 people live across 17 city- and state-run migrant shelters.
Initially the state offered emergency rent assistance to many eligible migrants who arrived in shelters before mid-November, but the program has been criticized for rushing families into expensive, inadequate apartments.
Migrants who can’t work legally are unable to keep up with rent payments after the voucher runs out. Many end up doubling up with other families to help pay the rent, others are winding up in eviction court or facing illegal lockouts.
Beyond the DNC, other experts say, city officials need to shift their focus from short term shelter alternatives into longer term immigrant integration policies — especially as tensions emerge among newly arrived migrants, long-time immigrants and Black residents.
“Fewer than 6,000 are in shelters right now,” said Sylvia Puente, president of the Latino Policy Forum. “How are the rest integrating into Illinois and Chicago society? How are they finding jobs? Where are they living? What neighborhoods are they moving to?”
Puente praises city officials as they gear up for the unknown regarding an influx of migrants arriving in Chicago. The city’s tougher challenge, however, is finding resources for all its residents after convention-goers leave.
Adriana Cardona-Maguigad covers immigration for WBEZ.
