Short on shelter space, for most of this year the City of Chicago has been housing illegal migrants in the lobbies of police stations. This has been less than comfortable for all concerned, needless to say. (For those police officers accused of having sexual relations with some of the migrants, it’s been another story, but we won’t go into that.) After months of this “temporary” housing, Chicago’s Finest have apparently had enough and begun kicking their guests out.
The website of the local CBS TV affiliate yesterday revealed that the police station at Calumet (5th) District on Monday evicted their unwanted guests onto the sidewalk. In so doing, they joined eight other police stations that were similarly unburdening themselves. The website quoted a police captain ordering the migrants to leave, saying:
This is not a game. I want everybody out this station, out this lobby… all this junk out of here.
The eviction came after some migrants refused to go to a just-opened public shelter. Some complained to the press that the police ordered them out in retaliation.
The move seems to be part of a new city policy announced yesterday by Mayor Brandon Johnson called the “Unity Initiative.” This in part involves 17 local churches that have agreed to house up to 20 migrants each, to ease the burden on the cops.
(Twenty migrants each at 17 churches adds up to 340 migrants housed. As of Monday, there were about 1,200 migrants still in police stations, down from a high of about 3,300 on October 16.)
Beyond the help from the churches, the city is beginning construction on two winterized tents that it calls “base camps” to enable all the police stations to rid themselves of migrants. One of the camps will be at Brighton Park and another on the Far South Side. The camps are projected to open with 500 residents each but expand up to 2,000 eventually.
The construction of these camps has not been met with universal approval. In late October, following the announcement of the camp at Brighton Park, neighborhood residents physically assaulted an alderwoman and her staff whom they blamed for the move. At a subsequent community meeting, opponents of the shelter shouted at city officials and broke into chants, yelling, “Send them back!” and “¡No queremos venezolanos!” (We don’t want Venezuelans!”) Ah, diversity.
The city is sticking to its plans, so far.
Such is life in Bidenworld.
For more, see CBS News.