Chicago’s migrant crisis in spotlight as Democrats prepare for convention

CHICAGO — The buses full of migrants arriving from Texas have disappeared. Shelter beds are increasingly empty. And homeless newcomers with nowhere else to go are no longer crowding airports and police stations.

But as Democrats prepare to gather in Chicago, the strain of taking in tens of thousands of new arrivals bused in from the border in recent years is still evident and will be difficult for Vice President Kamala Harris to escape as she accepts her party’s nomination for president.

Immigration activists are expected to protest the Biden administration’s new measures restricting how many people can enter and apply for asylum. The city is facing criticism after clearing several homeless encampments ahead of the Democratic National Convention. And tensions persist among local Democrats over how much the city has had to spend on the newcomers in the absence of more federal dollars.

The friction here reflects a broader struggle in the Democratic Party over how to deal with immigration. While Harris is expected to emphasize border security and highlight the declining number of illegal border crossings, other members of her party are upset at what they see as the Biden administration’s increasingly heavy-handed approach.

“The Democrats have every incentive to get these intraparty debates off center stage,” said John Sides, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University. But he noted party leaders can’t prevent protesters from raising immigration concerns. “What goes on in the streets outside is a different story.”

Chicago became a ground zero for the migration crisis two years ago, when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) started busing migrants north as part of a program relocating them to sanctuary cities. Chicago has received more than 46,000 new arrivals since August 2022, most of those arriving by bus, according to city officials.

The sudden arrival of so many newcomers made the Windy City a front line in the nation’s migrant crisis. Some Chicago Democrats attempted to welcome the arrivals, while others complained that the influx overwhelmed shelters and the social safety net, expanding homeless encampments.

In addition to Chicago, Abbott sent more than 65,000 migrants total to Denver, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Washington. Some of those cities limit migrants’ shelter stay to a few days or a month, but Chicago lets them stay in emergency housing for up to two months, along with providing other services.

In his speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last month, Abbott vowed to continue sending migrants to sanctuary cities. In response, shelters in Chicago began preparing for a new influx. The mayor said officials are ready to shelter up to 15,000 migrants should Abbott send more buses and try to disrupt the convention.

But with fewer migrants crossing into Texas, that appears increasingly unlikely.

Illegal crossings rose to record levels under President Joe Biden, peaking last December when officials encountered nearly 250,000 migrants, the highest monthly total ever. In June, the president announced new rules that ban migrants from seeking asylum if they cross the border illegally, unless they qualify for an exception.

Since then, the number of border crossings has plunged.

Last month, Border Patrol recorded 56,408 encounters with migrants crossing illegally between ports of entry along the southwest border, the lowest monthly total since September 2020.

Those who run shelters in Texas said they’re housing fewer new arrivals and haven’t helped migrants get on buses to Chicago in months. Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesman for the Texas governor, said the last bus to Chicago left in mid-June.

Ruben Garcia runs a network of migrant shelters known as Annunciation House in the El Paso area and says Border Patrol has released no more than a few dozen migrants daily to his shelters in recent weeks. He said not enough of those migrants want to travel to Chicago to reach the minimum 30 people needed to fill a bus.

The immigrant advocate criticized politicians who continue to claim that illegal border crossings are “out of control.”

“It’s simply not true,” Garcia said.

Experts cite two main reasons for the decrease in border crossings: The Biden administration’s emergency measures restricting access to the U.S. asylum system and increased immigration enforcement by Mexican authorities.

Mahaleris said Texas has stopped busing migrants to Chicago and other cities this summer because of the drop in illegal border crossings. He attributed the decline to the governor’s multibillion-dollar border security initiative, Operation Lone Star.

“Texas has decreased illegal crossings into the state by 85 percent thanks to our historic border mission, while in other border states crossings are up,” Mahaleris said in a statement. “Fewer illegal crossings into Texas means there are fewer buses departing for sanctuary cities.”

Even if migrants don’t arrive during the convention, Chicago is still dealing with the fallout from those Texas already sent. About 5,600 newcomers were staying at Chicago’s 17 shelters this past week, Deputy Mayor Beatriz Ponce de León said Friday. Others who are no longer in shelters are still struggling to find work and put food on the table for their families.

Busing migrants to Chicago and other blue cities shifted the economic burden of new arrivals. It also forced local Democrats to deal with the thorny politics of increased migration.

The situation in Chicago grew particularly dire last winter. Buses would arrive unannounced — including at night when few volunteers were on hand — and deposit dazed passengers at random spots around the city.

In April last year, then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) wrote to Abbott saying the city’s seven shelters were maxed out. The following month, Texas sent another bus of 48 migrants and Lightfoot declared a state of emergency. By the fall, migrants were crowding the city’s airports and police stations. Some pitched tents outside.

When the city enacted new ordinances to restrict unscheduled charter buses, Abbott accused local and state Democrats of hypocrisy. Earlier this year, Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) insisted that the city would “continue to live up to our values as we welcome new arrivals,” but said it needed support from the federal government and cooperation from Abbott.

Support has come in irregular bursts from the federal and state governments. Chicago has spent more than $460 million responding to the migrant influx since the first buses arrived two years ago, according to city data. In April, the federal government approved $19.3 million in funding for Chicago and Illinois. That same month, Cook County and the Chicago City Council approved $70 million each in migrant funding.

Those receiving migrants described a chaotic scramble to provide necessary services, what Andre Gordillo calls “building the plane as it flies.” The senior director of the New Vecinos program, which helps new migrants, said advocates built shelters and programs as fast as they could, then dealt with problems like measles outbreaks.

“It seems like every four to six weeks there’s something new,” said Gordillo, who has been working with new arrivals for 18 months.

Since last year, the city stopped erecting new shelters and turned others over to nonprofits. The number of migrants awaiting temporary housing in a given week is in the single digits, according to city records, and migrants are no longer sleeping at airports.

Gordillo sees signs of stability among recent arrivals: Marriages, baptisms, new jobs and apartments. Several asylum seekers from Venezuela who spent six months in a shelter got a work permit and now work for his group’s migrant support program.

And some Chicagoans have gone out of their way to support new migrants, Gordillo said. He recalled one good Samaritan who walked into his office with $400 cash. Gordillo used it to pay for food for migrant children who were attending a White Sox baseball game.

“I know social media will oftentimes highlight the negatives and tensions — and there’s truth to that,” Gordillo said. “But I’m blown away by the good Samaritans and the people you can call out of the blue when you need help.”

Ada Sosa fled to the United States from Nicaragua three years ago with her journalist husband and their now-12-year-old son because of political persecution, landing in Chicago. Despite a job with a nonprofit that helps migrants, a cozy apartment and her son readying for a new school year, she worries shake-ups to immigration policy could upend her new life in Chicago.

Anti-immigrant sentiment she sees from politicians in the news and on social media weighs on her, stirring fears that she will be forced to leave.

“Sometimes I think, ‘I want to buy, say, this piece of furniture,’” Sosa, 41, said. “But what if I can’t stay?”

Even in Chicago, some Democrats have objected to migrants being prioritized with government funding, particularly in Black communities on the South and West sides that have suffered decades of divestment.

Jeanette Taylor, an alderwoman on the City Council who is Black and represents areas on the city’s historically Black South Side, has voted at times in favor of funds for migrants, citing the humanitarian crisis. But Taylor takes a dim view of how city officials have handled the issue, responding too slowly at times, too rashly at others.

Taylor saw frustrations simmer when city officials opened a neighborhood shelter at a former high school without first soliciting community input. She said many longtime residents also felt disrespected and overlooked as resources went to newly arrived migrants.

“The issue was never about taking care of folks who were in need,” Taylor said. “It was about not getting a choice in how it was handled.”

Ponce de León, the deputy mayor, insisted city officials didn’t take money from other programs to provide for new migrants. But she conceded that city officials need “to do some better work of building community relationships.” She also said the federal government needs to provide more assistance to support migrants locally because “what we have done is really more of a federal responsibility.”

It’s unclear how much Harris and other national party leaders will address such tensions over immigration during the convention, especially as they’ve been trying to court swing state votes, said Sides, the political science professor.

“She’s got to deal with more progressive voices in the party who want more humanitarian goals. But it’s pretty clear she’s moved more towards Biden,” in emphasizing border security, Sides said.

He expected Harris and others to keep immigration out of the spotlight at the DNC. But protesters planning to gather outside the convention have other ideas.

Carlos Montes, a Los Angeles immigration activist, will join more than 200 groups protesting outside the DNC as part of a coalition with various demands, including immigration reform. Montes plans to carry a banner demanding “Legalization for all.”

Montes said he hopes activists can pressure Democrats to address their concerns at the DNC and propose policies that would help the 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the U.S.

“I think they’ll give us something, some piecemeal reform,” said Montes, 77. “We’re not going to be satisfied with that.”

Meanwhile, migrants in Chicago are watching the political tensions with concern. Those who have managed to resettle in Chicago have struggled but also found support.

Miguel Mendoza, a migrant from Venezuela, works as an auto mechanic and doing odd jobs since he arrived on a bus from Texas a year ago. He has moved out of a homeless shelter and into an apartment he shares with a friend in the historically Latino neighborhood of Little Village on the city’s Southwest Side.

He has made friends in Chicago, likes to visit Lake Michigan and is eager to build a self-sufficient future in the city, not be a drain on it.

“We’re not here to take away, we’re not here to invade,” Mendoza, 28, said of migrants. “We’re here to get ahead. We just want a better life.”