City has lost all communication about migrant drop offs since new penalties, official says
Migrants are no longer being dropped off at the city’s landing zone on buses from the southern border, causing people to wander with no direction looking for shelter, according to an aide to Mayor Brandon Johnson.
Cristina Pacione-Zayas, Johnson’s deputy chief of staff, said the lack of communication is directly correlated with the city’s harsher penalties for bus owners whose vehicles violate rules to rein in chaotic bus arrivals from the southern border. She suspects bus companies are finding other ways to get migrants into the city. As of Saturday, more than 25,900 migrants had arrived in Chicago since August 2022, according to city records.
Under revised rules Wednesday, buses face “seizure and impoundment” for unloading passengers without a permit or outside of approved hours and locations. Violators will also be subject to $3,000 fines, plus towing and storage fees.
The city impounded a “rogue bus” trying to drop off 29 migrants at the landing zone in the West Loop at 800 S. Desplaines St. Wednesday night.
“Obviously, they’re trying every way to work around this,” Pacione-Zayas said. “Since we’ve instituted the ordinance and the amendment, we have lost all communication with the border. They’re not sending us any notices.”
On Friday, she said city officials found migrants in various locations around the city — City Hall, Christkindlmarket and Union Station. According to Pacione-Zayas, migrants reported that bus drivers bought them Ventra cards and Amtrak tickets to get to Chicago.
She said a suburb municipality received a bus Friday and directed it to go to the landing zone, and instead it took off toward the Indiana border.
The deputy chief of staff suspects bus drivers drop off migrants at train stations outside of the city and buy them train fares to get downtown.
“Bus companies are facilitating their transfer into the city,” she said. “It sends us scurrying.”
In October, a delegation from the city went to Texas to try to talk to officials there to coordinate bus drop offs. Buses at the time were coming at all hours of the day and night, without warning.
The city implemented rules in mid-November requiring drop-offs to occur on weekdays between 8 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. The city also limited bus arrivals to two per hour and designated the location in the West Loop to unload passengers.
The loading zone helps the city have a better “on-the-ground transport plan” and know if families or singles are coming to place them in appropriate shelters.
But since the harsher penalties Wednesday, the landing zone hasn’t received nearly as many buses. The city received notice that two were expected Saturday, but only through an email communication on which they were accidentally copied, Pacione-Zayas said.
“Folks are just kind of being dropped off at different points. They’re wandering to police stations. Or they’re wandering to shelters,” she said.
The city has been actively clearing migrants out of police stations into shelters, and reported Saturday morning that there were none staying overnight at stations, down over 2,000 a few weeks ago.
On Saturday evening, however, there will be a warming bus at the Near West station (12th District), which covers much of the Little Italy and University of Illinois at Chicago neighborhoods, to respond to the uncoordinated arrivals.
The city’s Office of Emergency Management works with the contracted national employment firm Favorite Staffing to pick migrants up and get them to the warming bus or into shelter beds if there is availability.
Pacione-Zayas said she is just asking Texas officials for more communication.
“When they come without notice and coordination, it starts to undermine what we’re trying to do,” she said.
