Chicago’s new mayor is trying to figure out how to house hundreds of immigrants who are arriving by bus from the US-Mexico border, as some sleep in crowded police stations and shelters after a surge in border crossings earlier this month .
Officials in the third-largest US city say they can’t afford hotel room rent for all the immigrants arriving and are pushing for more federal funding. Some migrants looking for a safe place to sleep have turned to police stations.
“We are waiting to see where they are going to put us,” said Tomás Orozco, a 55-year-old migrant who arrived at a Chicago shelter with his family on Wednesday after an arduous seven-week journey from Venezuela.
The journey took them through the Darien Gap, an inhospitable jungle that separates Colombia and Panama, and members of his family were still sick after drinking contaminated water, Orozco said.
Housing problems in Chicago and other cities comes after last week COVID-19 era restrictions ended known as Title 42, which allowed local authorities to expel migrants to Mexico without the possibility of seeking asylum in the United States.
Tens of thousands of people rushed to cross the border illegally before US President Joe Biden implemented a strict new asylum regulation to replace Title 42.
Earlier this month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, resumed a campaign to bus immigrants to northernmost Democratic strongholds, including Chicago and New York City.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, has called on the Biden administration to provide more funding to cities receiving recently arrived immigrants.
Adams suspended some of the city’s housing rights rules last week, citing pressure to house asylum seekers, and is considering using school gyms as shelters.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a Democrat who took office Monday, reaffirmed the city’s commitment to welcoming asylum seekers in his inauguration address, saying “there is enough space for everyone.”
Johnson’s Democratic predecessor, Lori Lightfoot, declared a state of emergency earlier this month, calling the arrival of immigrants a “humanitarian crisis” in a bid to win more federal assistance.
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