CHICAGO — Chicago’s City Hall is facing criticism for its efforts in handling migrant refugees as migrant families are forced to sleep on the floor at many police districts.
Chicago is historically known as a city of immigrants and a sanctuary city welcoming newcomers, but the reception for mostly Venezuelan and Cuban immigrants has been a mixed bag with not enough shelter capacity or available migrant housing.
“We are sleeping recently on the floor because we don’t have anywhere to go,” Kae Bay, a Venezuelan migrant, said.
Bay is with his wife, two kids and his cousin’s family.
The children are struggling to deal with this unusual confinement.
“They’re practically locked in and they want to play, go outside. But we can’t because we are awaiting a response,” Bay said.
As instructed, he called the city’s 311 helpline and is waiting to be transferred to a shelter by city drivers and private relief organizations that are working together to deal with the surge of migrants.
The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) says there are other city resources and departments that are responsible for taking care of this, but resources at those departments are stretched thin.
“They’re just shuffling them around from station to station. They’re making it look like they are relocating them somewhere. It’s all smoke and mirrors. they’re not doing anything for these people but making their life more inconvenient, more uncomfortable, and more importantly, at least from my perspective, putting my members in jeopardy,“ Chicago FOP leader John Catanzara said.
“We estimate about 12,000 to 15,000 new people have come to Chicago alone since last September,” Dr. Evelyn Figueroa, with the Figueroa Wu Family Foundation, said.
She has worked with migrants through her non-profit and said despite everybody’s efforts, it’s a capacity issue.
And she said there hasn’t been enough time to build a shelter capacity.
“Tripling, quadrupling capacity was just not feasible so they’re stuck in these really awful places,” Figueroa said. “They are warming centers but the are certainly not homes.”
In a written statement, the City of Chicago said, “This humanitarian crisis remains fluid. We have been working tirelessly to connect new arrivals with much-needed assistance and support.”