City and college officials were met with boos and chants of “bulls---” — but also some praise and claps of support — as they defended plans Tuesday night to move hundreds of migrants into a gymnasium at Wilbur Wright College on the Far Northwest Side.
Residents of Dunning, Portage Park and other nearby communities packed the gym — the same space into which hundreds of migrants could be moved as early as Saturday — to pose questions and, in some cases, vent their opposition.
It’s the latest in a series of conflicts over how the city can absorb the recent influx of migrants, a crisis that has seen nearly 10,000 migrants arrive in Chicago since Aug 31, 2022, mostly from Central and South America, according to figures presented by city officials Tuesday evening. One of the major stressors is that more than 700 new arrivals — many bused or flown from the Texas border — are now sleeping on the floors of various police stations, mostly families with children, officials said.
Moving asylum seekers to the college is intended to address that issue. City officials said the plan is to move up to 400 people — families only; no single adults — to the college, only through Aug. 1. No visitors, drugs, alcohol or smoking would be allowed; an 11 p.m. curfew would be in place; and residents would have to sign in and out.
But such provisions appeared to do little to mollify some in the audience.
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City Colleges Chancellor Juan Salgado endured the first round of boos when he said told the crowd the was “confident that this will go well.” The local alderman, Nick Sposato, 38th, tries to calm them down with a “We’re better than this,” but some in the crowd kept yelling, “Bulls---.”
Jesús A. Del Toro, project manager from the city’s Office of New Americans, was also booed by some in the crowd when he said Italians and Poles also were immigrants fleeing political suppression and poverty and that “this is just another chapter and for the most part the Venezuelans are coming here for similar reasons.”
Matt Doughtie, an emergency coordinator with the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communication, received boos, but also some cheers, when he said, “Right now, Wright College is the solution that we need.”
Audience members shouted out comments, such as noting the expense of providing water to the migrants. One person challenged the commitment to move the migrants out by Aug. 1, asking, “Where do they go?”
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When asked about the plans ahead of Tuesday’s meetings, Sposato said, “Well, I don’t not support it.” He noted the new shelter would provide immediate relief to the 16th District Chicago police station in the nearby 45th Ward’s Jefferson Park neighborhood but would not solve the overall “heartwrenching” crisis that has gone on since last August.
“The alternative is they stay in the police stations, which I know nobody wants to see that,” Sposato said. “This is a strong police-supporting community.”
The alderman said he doesn’t expect all his constituents to be happy, listing anxieties over the “vetting” process of their backgrounds: “I would guess the fear of the unknown is the biggest concern of people.”
The strain on local social services reached a fever pitch in May when former Mayor Lori Lightfoot declared a state of emergency over the situation while city budget officials continued scrambling to find the funds to keep shelter operations afloat past June.
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The roots of the humanitarian crisis go back to late last summer, when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, sent the first busloads of migrants north from mainly Central and South America, arguing border towns had run out of room and resources to shelter migrants and said “sanctuary cities” such as Chicago should accept them.
Lightfoot, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and current Mayor Brandon Johnson have derided Abbott’s action as a cruel political stunt, but Abbott maintains his actions are a cry for help from President Joe Biden and other Democrats to fix the escalating crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. Federal border restrictions that were put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic also expired this month, potentially spelling a new era of record migration.
Some communities have become more accepting of migrant shelters locating in their neighborhoods after initial resistance. But most of the solutions are temporary, with the strain on the city’s budget continuous and growing.
To that end, the City Council is expected to vote on allocating $51 million in surpluses to keep shelter and food operations running through next month. Sposato voted “no” in committee because he said it was unfair to designate city funds for migrants and deny existing homeless Chicagoans that same aid. His concerns have been echoed by some Black aldermen from the South and West sides, who said their communities haven’t seen investment in decades.
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Plan to house migrants at Chicago college gym met with both boos and support - Chicago Tribune
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