The Latest Breaking News from Andre Vasquez

Threats to city officials come amid heightened tensions due to Trump’s ‘Midway Blitz’ immigration raids

Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th), chair of the City Council’s Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said Deputy Chief of Staff Cristina Pacione-Zayas told him late last month of the city’s plan to, as she put it, “right-size” the migrant shelter system without offering details.

Chicago officials are closing in on plans to transform a budget motel along North Lincoln Avenue into a housing pilot that would provide on-site substance abuse and mental health treatment — part of the city’s long-term efforts to combat chronic homelessness by pairing temporary shelter with intensive health care.

A City Council committee OKs plan to buy the Diplomat Motel for $2.9 million and use its 40 rooms to help people with mental health and substance abuse issues.

Every summer, some Winnemac Park residents await the Fourth of July with dread. The unofficial — and illegal — fireworks show that takes place in the park every year can upset those with post-traumatic stress disorder, pets and children, neighbors said.

Potential sites for new shelters were identified in a memo distributed to Chicago City Council members before a meeting Wednesday of the Council’s Immigrant and Refugee Rights Committee.

The raucous meeting saw speakers shouting each other down, prompting appeals for decorum from Mayor Brandon Johnson. In the end, the funds transfer passed 34-13 — enough to carry Chicago only through June 30.

The city, advocates and community groups are aiming to help the tens of thousands of migrants who have arrived in Chicago with everything from clothes and toiletries to housing.

Tears were shed, good-natured barbs traded, hatchets buried. One would never have known Ald. Edward Burke is leaving under the cloud of a federal indictment or that the mayor’s relationship with the Council was so contentious,