More than 10 construction trucks were ready to enter the city’s chosen migrant tent site in Brighton Park on Monday before protesters from the neighborhood stopped them from proceeding.
About a dozen protesters planted themselves at the entrance of the site at 38th Street and California Avenue, demanding a copy of an environmental assessment of the lot and of construction work permits authorizing building to begin on a space intended to house migrants.
“Show me the permit; I’m ready to go to jail,” said Roberto Silvestre, recalling his words to a police officer who ordered the protesters to disperse.
A number of protests have taken place at the Southwest Side lot since residents learned that it was under consideration to become the first of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s “winterized basecamps.” At one demonstration, protesters attacked local Ald. Julia Ramirez (12th) and an aide.
On Monday, protesters stopped crews from putting a layer of gravel over the lot, a requirement for building a tent site, according to city officials who last week said lots had to have a concrete or gravel base to be under consideration.
Crews were also spotted putting up chainlink fences around the site.
The city did not answer questions about the work at the site but said the environmental assessment was ongoing.
Previously, officials have said that if the environmental assessment of the former zinc smelting site shows that the land is viable, it would be turned into a tent shelter, housing initially 500 migrants before expanding to house 2,000.
The city has already signed a lease for the land, which, they say, will allow them to proceed with building the tent shelter immediately if the land is deemed viable. If not, there is a clause in the lease that would allow the city to void the $548,000, six-month lease.
“We don’t see as right to put people in tents,” Silvestre said, adding that Chicago sees “arctic winters.” “We gotta respect humanity, at least a little bit.”
Nearly 1,600 migrants remain camped out at Chicago police stations Monday, according to the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications. Another 575 are at O’Hare.
In response to previous protests, the city has repeatedly reiterated a humanitarian need for a camp.
“The City of Chicago is at an increasingly critical point in the new arrival mission,” said spokesperson Mary May, “with [thousands of] asylum-seekers sleeping on the floors of police stations, at O’Hare Airport and outdoors in inclement weather.”
Michael Loria is a staff reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times via Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster the paper’s coverage of communities on the South Side and West Side.
