Dangerously low temperatures worsen migrant crisis in Chicago

By Kim Bellware
January 14, 2024 at 6:41 p.m. EST



A migrant walks past a warming bus in Chicago on Friday. Texas governor Greg Abbott (R) has sent thousands of migrants to Democratic-led northern cities. (Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP/Getty Images)

CHICAGO — State and city officials in Chicago are scrambling to adapt their plans for sheltering asylum seekers as Texas’s governor disregards pleas to suspend migrant transports as dangerously low winter temperatures bring new urgency to the city’s ongoing humanitarian crisis.

Chicago continues to receive new arrivals sent north by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) even as the area experiences its coldest temperatures in half a decade, with wind chills bottoming out at minus-32 degrees on Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.

More than 15,400 asylum seekers flown or bused from Texas are in Chicago shelters in some capacity, according to city data; nearly 250 are sheltering at O’Hare International Airport. As of Sunday, the city had relocated all the people, about 140, who were waiting in the “landing zone,” the area designated for the migrants’ bus arrivals. In recent days, accommodations at the landing zone were largely limited to city buses used as warming centers.

The onset of brutal temperatures prompted Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) to announce Friday that the city would delay a policy, scheduled to take effect Wednesday, that would evict migrants who arrived in 2022 from city-run shelters after 60 days.

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By Kim Bellware
Kim Bellware covers national and breaking news for The Washington Post. Twitter https://twitter.com/bellwak