It was widely expected that massive numbers of migrants would stream into the U.S. following the expiration Thursday of Title 42, the COVID-19-era policy that allowed border authorities to rapidly return most migrants who had crossed into the U.S. illegally. Instead, the border has been relatively quiet, with roughly 4,200 migrants detained Saturday and 6,300 on Sunday. That’s a drop from peaks as high as 11,000 detentions earlier last week, just before the pandemic policy’s expiration.
But that’s hardly solace for Chicago, where migrants have been sleeping shoulder-to-shoulder on police station floors and jammed into shuttered schools, Park District field houses and even an abandoned Streeterville hotel.
Many of the migrants are mothers traveling with toddlers and young children, all coping with the queasy angst of not knowing what happens next.
The crisis is both national and intensely local, and blame can be affixed to many players. It starts with Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, who resorted to the cynical ploy of using migrants as political pawns and shipping them with one-way tickets to Chicago, New York and other Democratic strongholds.
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said of Abbott in an interview with WTTW that, “If there’s a hell, he’ll go to it.” Preckwinkle’s charged remark wasn’t just understandable, it succinctly summed up what much of the rest of the city has been thinking.
Former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who justifiably has been also harshly critical of Abbott, isn’t altogether blameless. The first wave of migrants that Abbott dispatched came last fall. Then the flow of migrants coming into Chicago slowed, which should have given Lightfoot’s team ample time and opportunity to map out contingency plans for the next wave. One constant in this crisis has been Abbott’s predictability, and Lightfoot could have done a better job bracing the city for this latest influx.
And then, of course, there’s the inexplicable gridlock that has characterized Congress’ inaction on immigration reform — for two decades.
One of the latest attempts at bipartisan immigration reform emerged late last year. Former Democrat and now independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona teamed up with GOP Sen. Thom Tillis from North Carolina to craft a measure that would have tackled critical immigration issues such as improved processing of asylum claims, the creation of a pathway to citizenship for roughly 2 million so-called Dreamers (undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children), and the allocation of billions of dollars to better secure the southern border. It was a smart, comprehensive approach, and yet an ineffectual, divided Congress shelved it.
And if Vice President Kamala Harris has some effective new ideas on this emergency, we have yet to hear them.
In Chicago, the crisis is now in the hands of Mayor Brandon Johnson. The new mayor quickly made clear Chicago’s compassion for the plight of migrants, saying during his inauguration speech Monday that the city “will never close our doors to those who come here in search of a better life.” One of his first official acts included an executive order creating a “Deputy Mayor for Immigrant, Migrant and Refugee Rights,” a post that will liaise with city departments to ensure support for asylum seekers.
On Tuesday, his first full day in office, he met with migrants at a police station in Pilsen and a Little Village park center, telling reporters “I’m here today because I needed to see it firsthand.”
That’s laudable, but more than photo ops are needed for Chicago to cope with an ongoing migrant crisis that requires tangible support for asylum-seekers and a smart approach to finding ways to finance that support. Johnson can begin by fashioning a game plan for the crisis, and so far he hasn’t shared that plan with the city.
Does he have one? He should.
Though he’s in his first week in office, Johnson has had weeks to prepare for what clearly is an urgent problem. This crisis isn’t going away any time soon, and the mere fact that there are still migrant families — including young children — crammed into police stations should be ample incentive to move fast. Despite the lull in migrant activity at the border, more asylum-seekers are bound to get shipped to Chicago, and the city is already at capacity.
One idea Johnson should consider: Smart thinkers in the city and surrounding suburbs have been talking up the merit of a regional approach toward solving metro area problems and crises. The current migrant plight can become the ideal litmus test for the city and suburbs’ commitment to regional problem-solving. Though Chicago has been struggling to find more adequate, humane shelter for incoming migrants, suburbia clearly has ample space and infrastructure.
New York Mayor Eric Adams has already tried sharing the burden of sheltering migrants by enlisting nearby suburbs. His attempt drew fierce blowback from those towns — largely because he sprung the idea on them with little notice. Johnson could glean lessons from Adams’ experience and negotiate with Chicago suburban leaders so that the suburbs don’t feel as if they’re simply being volunteered to help involuntarily. And Gov. J.B. Pritzker should lend his bully pulpit to the promotion of this cooperative approach.
The best solution, of course, is a permanent one — and that will only happen when Congress, together with the administration of President Joe Biden, do what they were elected to do and hammer out genuine, lasting immigration reform. The Sinema-Tillis bill would be an ideal place to start.
Until then, cities like New York, Chicago and others must not shirk their duty to shelter and care for migrant families exploited in the worst way by a Texas governor who reprehensibly chooses self-serving politics over human decency. It’s not an easy ask.
Johnson will have to balance support for migrants with an equally urgent task — resourcing Black and brown communities that have endured neglect for far too long. He can begin by framing the migrant crisis not just as a Chicago problem, but as a regional one.
