The mayor of Chicago is at loggerheads with fellow progressives and his own Democratic state governor over the city’s choice of a vexed company to erect controversial tents for asylum seekers during the bitter midwest winter – as wider tensions rise on the left at the local and national level over migration policy chaos.
While the city’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, and the Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, are divided over how to house thousands of migrant families currently sleeping inside and outside Chicago police stations, the two are united in fury at lack of emergency funding coming from Joe Biden’s White House.
This echoes recent political tumult within the New York Democratic leadership and among that city, state and the federal government also, over the strain on emergency housing facilities in New York City.
Acute problems in several Democratic-led cities have been precipitated largely by hard-right Republican leaders in Texas unilaterally bussing migrants from the US-Mexico border region to liberal coastal and northern cities over the 18 months. An increase in families fleeing crisis-torn Venezuela has exacerbated the situation as they have fewer established immigrant communities in the US to rely on.
Since last summer, Chicago has received more than 17,000 asylum seekers who crossed the southern border requesting refuge in the US. Nearly 10,000 are now temporarily housed in city-run shelters. But 2,500 remain sleeping on the floors of police stations and the city’s airports, where conditions are tough. More buses continue to arrive frequently from the southern border without liaison between Texas and the northern city’s authorities.
In recent days, Pritzker and Johnson confronted top White House officials in a conference call, saying the federal government was not doing enough about the crisis and they needed urgent support, as first reported by CNN.
And in a letter to Biden, Pritzker stressed that much more “must be done” for his state by the federal government and asked for better coordination and financial support, including a quicker process to receive employment authorization while waiving fees for temporary protected status applications.
Biden recently made concessions, under pressure from New York leaders in particular, over policies severely delaying asylum seekers from legally working while they navigate the US legal process.
“The humanitarian crisis is overwhelming our ability to provide aid to the refugee population. Unfortunately, the welcome and aid Illinois has been providing to these asylum seekers has not been matched with support by the federal government,” Pritzker said in the letter.
He also added: “Most critically, the federal government’s lack of intervention and coordination at the border has created an untenable situation for Illinois.”
The confrontation with the Biden administration came as Johnson, elected as a progressive earlier this year, was being heavily criticized from his own political base by aid groups, political committees, community organizers and protesters – including some of the mayor’s own staff – over his plans to put up tents to house migrants in the cold months.
He is specifically under fire for hiring a controversial firm, GardaWorld Federal Services, for $29m, to erect the tents and run them as so-called “base camps” for nearly 2,500 asylum seekers awaiting shelter in Chicago.
GardaWorld, an international company founded in Quebec, Canada, is contentious as it has been investigated for safety violations.
It’s also one of the companies that Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, hired for his multimillion-dollar so-called migrant removal program by road and air.
Criticism about the plan for tents had already been bubbling up in Chicago in recent weeks and became more heated when Pritzker, in a Thursday press conference, expressed concern about GardaWorld and also suggested the authorities facilitate shelter in existing unused buildings, not tents.
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“I have concerns, and I’ve talked to the city about what [and] how these base camps would be created. I know the city has looked at this as one of its options, but I don’t think this is the only option, and again, we’re attempting to identify other facilities that are already built, where we could house migrants,” Pritzker said.
According to city officials, GardaWorld would temporarily deal with housing the 2,500 asylum seekers who are currently obliged to sleep on the floors of police precincts, where many have complained about poor treatment by police officers and have also struggled to access basics like medical treatment.
Sara Izquierdo, a medical student in Chicago and volunteer who has been providing assistance to asylum seekers with money crowdfunded by her and other medical students, said at a recent city council meeting: “People are sleeping on top of each other and people just don’t have any room left or are having to sleep outside on tarps or cardboard.”
Izquierdo said she has dealt with many who arrived at the police precincts injured and in desperate need of medical attention, having been put on buses from Texas with injuries and sickness. She emphasized that the city has not contributed to the medical care.
Meanwhile, the city’s plan is that GardaWorld would build and operate tents before the cold weather arrives, city officials said, and the company would provide heated tents with cots, three meals a day, medical services, shower accessibility, laundry services and other amenities.
The Johnson administration has argued that the option to build tents comes from “expediency” in getting people out of police stations quickly, and that providing medical care would be much more effective when people are in one place.
In June, authorities in Denver, Colorado, canceled a contract with GardaWorld when advocates and organizers expressed concerns about the mistreatment of migrants.
In a recent Chicago city council meeting, lawmakers clashed over solutions and, afterwards, protesters showed up demanding Johnson cancel the contract with GardaWorld.
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This article was amended on 7 October 2023. It originally stated that GardaWorld was the same company that bussed migrants to Texas when in fact it was not.
