CHICAGO — The State of Illinois is temporarily putting migrants in hotel rooms as more migrants have come to Illinois in recent days.
About 30 hotel rooms were made available on Saturday night and the remaining hotel rooms will be available for about 200 people coming on Sunday.
The Illinois Department of Human Services is working with the City of Chicago to identify hotel rooms and the city is providing transportation, according to a news release from the state.
Once construction is done on a shelter at the former CVS Pharmacy in Little Village, the migrants in hotels will be moved there. Work on the shelter is expected to be done in January.
“IDHS continues to welcome our new neighbors with support services and assistance with work-permit applications, which will ultimately hasten their journey to self-sufficiency,” IDHS Secretary Designate Dulce Quintero said in the release.
The hotel rooms are funded by an additional $160 million Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker announced in November to support migrants.
In recent days, migrants have arrived to Chicagoland suburbs by bus at Metra stations and then sent to Chicago by train.
On Saturday evening, 38 migrants were dropped off at the Fox River Grove Metra station and were told they arrived in Chicago.
Police provided them with shelter and arrangements were made to give them train tickets to get to Chicago.