By Mark Weyermuller, Citizen Journalist
Now that the cold weather is approaching in Chicago, the “migrant crisis”– as some are calling it, is becoming a bigger crisis. Others are calling it an invasion, but over the past few months, thousands of immigrants have arrived in the city with basically nowhere to go. They are sleeping in tents, gym floors, hotels, churches, police stations, and even the airport.
The City of Chicago has been declared a sanctuary city which means undocumented immigrants, asylum seekers, or as some call them, “illegal aliens,” can stay in Chicago with no recourse. The city has said they will not cooperate with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Agency referred to as ICE. In the past, immigrants here illegally would be deported. This is all part of the new open borders policies.
Chicago officials have also declared the city as a “Welcoming City” and that Chicago police officers cannot arrest people on the basis of their immigration status.
The city has set up migrant shelters at 28 locations. The migrants are also living out front of police stations across the city where they are sleeping on the lobby floor along with tents out front using porta-potties and no showers.
Another big issue is the closing of Amundsen Park Field-House in the Austin neighborhood on the west side of Chicago. The city had planned to make this a migrant shelter. A community meeting was held there with over 600 attending.
Video filmed at the Amundsen Park community meeting has over one million views on various platforms. It shows a community meeting in early October which ended abruptly when organizers, parents, and residents brought in the youth football players which are being thrown out of their community park. The community does not want to lose their park to migrants. Many wonder why this focus was never on the Chicago homeless population which seems to continuously get worse.
Amundsen Park remains closed for neighborhood kids to play basketball and senior fitness programs have been cancelled or moved to other parks. They now have 24 hour armed off duty Chicago Police guarding the building so no residents can use it. The plan to make it a shelter has been on hold. There are talks for the city to buy or rent the old Zenith Television headquarters just a block from Amundsen Park. This is an office building with limited bathrooms, no showers, and limited kitchen facilities. It’s not really a building for lodging but certainly is better then tents out in the cold.
Other migrant shelters include Terminal 2 at O’Hare Airport. Migrants are sleeping in makeshift areas divided by curtains along with mattresses on the cement floors. There are bathrooms but no showers. Terminal two is a transportation hub mostly for shuttle buses of arriving passengers going downtown and to hotels. There are migrants living at all 22 Chicago Police stations and they are either sleeping on the lobby floor or in front in makeshift tents.
One more site that has become a shelter is the former Marine Training Center on the northside of Chicago. Block Club Chicago is reporting that TIF money was used to buy it. It’s very questionable if this was the intent of this program to house migrants. This site is next door to a CTA bus garage and backs up to Northside Prep High School. It is also across the street from North Park College and a couple blocks from Northeastern University. There are legitimate security concerns especially with so many young students in the area.
Another fact which is disputed is how the migrants are being bused and flown to Chicago. Many media outlets are reporting that Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is sending the people. This appears not to be true. He might have sent a couple hundred but not the reported 40,000 that have arrived here this year. The Chicago Tribune reported Sunday that Catholic Charities is providing and coordinating the transportation.
Who exactly is Catholic Charities and who funds their mission? Again there is little reporting of transparency.
There are many moving parts in the migrant crisis in the city of Chicago. Many are calling for Mayor Brandon Johnson and the 50 aldermen to stop the sanctuary city status. There are many questions as to where the millions of dollars are coming from to support the migrants. Nobody knows what will happen next. There seems to be more questions than answers.
