Our "welcoming city" bungles its migrant and measles crises.
As a Chicagoan it was a day I will always be proud of: January 28, 2017.
Trump had just issued his Muslim travel ban. Thousands of us, hearing it on the news or getting the reports on social media, got in cars and boarded the blue line and headed for O’Hare to protest Trump’s orders and welcome arrivals at the International Terminal 5.
Pride turned to shame and disappointment this past week. Some anger too.
Mayor Brandon Johnson, after months of pushback and delay, resumed his efforts to evict up to several thousand migrants staying in city migrant shelters.
The action to evict migrants after 60 days whether or not they have jobs or other places to live made a cruel joke of the idea that Chicago is a welcoming city.
At the moment we don’t seem very welcoming.
It is true that Mayor Johnson did not create the city’s migrant crisis.
For that we can point to opportunist political hacks like Texas Governor Greg Abbott who continues to bus refugees from our southern border to cities like Chicago and New York. In Chicago, more than 37,000 migrants and asylum seekers have been bused to the city by Abbott.
Johnson also correctly put blame on the federal government for not providing more assistance to sanctuary cities like Chicago.
But now thousands of migrants and asylum-seekers living in Chicago-run migrant shelters have begun being evicted.
The evictions come at the same time when growing number of confirmed measles cases have shown up inside the city’s largest shelter.
Ten measles cases have been confirmed at the shelter in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood since March 8, including five new cases that were announced just a week ago.
These are the first cases of measles reported in Chicago in five years.
Undeterred by the measles outbreak, Johnson announced Wednesday that the city will resume enforcing its 60-day limit on shelter stays for migrants.
“The ultimate goal is to move people to resettlement or out-migration,” Johnson told reporters. “What this policy has essentially done, it has given us the opportunity to have real substantive conversations with migrants to help them move on.”
I’m not convinced that what migrants need is “conversation”. Housing and jobs are the more pressing need.
40th Ward Alder, Andre Vasquez drafted a letter signed by 18 alders and a host of community organizations opposing the evictions.
Alder Vasquez said that 80% of new arrivals do not have access to work authorization and that 50% are not eligible for state-funded rental assistance that would allow them to find housing. “I don’t know where it’s currently at,” said Vasquez. “I’m just waiting to see and we’re what? About a day away from (the deadline) now?”
At the Pilsen shelter, where folks need to be quarantined for 21 days, the prospect of evictions has made matters worse.
In addition, immigrants living at the city-run shelter have told WGN that conditions inside the facility are awful.
They have described conditions inside the facility as overcrowded. There are more than 1,800 residents, including 95 toddlers ages 2 or under, all sleeping in one open room.