Several Chicago suburbs vote to limit unscheduled migrant bus drop-offs from Texas

A migrant surge continues to overwhelm authorities at the US-Mexico border — and in US cities where many asylum-seekers are being sent.

Here are the latest developments:

Leaders of several Chicago suburbs have voted to restrict buses from dropping off migrants without notice while officials in New Jersey are trying to figure out how to deal with buses using transit points in their state to evade new rules aimed at curbing the influx of arrivals in New York City.

Frustrated by “rogue buses” from Texas dropping off migrants by the thousands, the mayors of New York and Chicago, along with Denver, have tried to slow the surge by requiring bus operators to coordinate arrivals under the threat of impound, fines and even jail time through executive orders.

But in the week since New York’s executive order began limiting when and where migrants can be dropped off, as well as requiring advance written notice of asylum-seekers’ arrival, “not one bus from Texas has complied,” New York Mayor Eric Adams’ chief counsel Lisa Zornberg said Tuesday.

Now, suburbs of New York and Chicago are seeing migrants dropped off in their communities – and stretching their resources thin.

At the direction of Texas’ Republican governor, the Lone Star state since April 2022 has bused more than 90,000 migrants to “sanctuary cities” run by Democrats, including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver, Los Angeles and Washington, DC, according to numbers released Friday by Gov. Greg Abbott’s office.

Border authorities encountered more than 225,000 migrants along the US-Mexico border in December alone, marking the highest monthly total recorded since 2000, according to preliminary Homeland Security statistics shared with CNN.

“We anticipate the encounter numbers on the border will continue to fluctuate,” a senior Biden administration official said. “We have seen over the last year, periods of increased encounters and periods of decreased encounters.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson and some of his Republican colleagues, were to visit the border Wednesday as House Republicans plan impeachment proceedings against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of the border crisis.

Chicago suburbs pass their own ordinances

Lawmakers in Chicago suburbs in recent days have approved new laws similar to the busing ordinance in the nation’s third-most-populous city that aims to streamline migrant drop-offs and stop buses from leaving new arrivals “in the middle of traffic, on random street corners and at O’Hare International Airport,” Chicago officials have said.

Texas has sent over 28,000 asylum seekers to Chicago since August 2022, according to Friday numbers from Abbott’s office.

“This was a tough one, because we don’t want to look like we don’t care, but we have to move forward and get a handle on all of this,” Councilperson Jan Quillman of Joliet said of the ordinance in her city that passed unanimously.

Three days before Christmas, the village of Hinsdale “began receiving unannounced busloads of migrants from Texas who were being dropped off at or near Hinsdale’s main train station so that they could take the train from Hinsdale to Chicago,” Village Board President Thomas Cauley Jr. said Tuesday, the same day lawmakers there unanimously approved restricting bus activity.

Suburban communities that have already adopted such measures have seen success preventing migrant buses from using their towns as transfer points, he added. “The inflow of busloads of migrants to those suburbs have stopped,” Cauley said. “The buses then go to suburbs that do not have ordinances.”

Most of the measures passed by Chicago suburbs require five days advance notice for “unscheduled intercity bus service” carrying people one way.

In Hinsdale, the penalty for violating the ordinance is a $750 fine for each passenger, and buses could be seized and impounded. The community of Wilmington, south of Chicago, passed a similar ordinance Tuesday, said its mayor, Ben Dietz.

The city of North Chicago approved a new ordinance requiring advance notice of migrant arrivals, according to Mayor Leon Rockingham Jr.

The ordinance, which was unanimously passed Tuesday by the City Council, requires bus companies to give a 72-hour notice of arrival to North Chicago. Fines for not reporting will range from $1,000 to $5,000.

Although Rockingham says there haven’t been any issues with buses dropping migrants off in the city, he expressed concern for the potential for dropoffs since there are two Metra commuter train stations in North Chicago that connect to Chicago. One is at Naval Station Great Lakes, which is home to the Navy’s Recruit Training Command facility.

“I know they have some (drop-offs) in the surrounding communities so we wanted to prepare for it,” Rockingham said.

“We just wouldn’t have the resources here. It’s a small community and we have a small budget, and we just want to make sure they get back to the proper landing spot in Chicago,” he said. “That way they can be processed properly.”

Though leaders of Chicago suburbs have said there have been no known public safety incidents related to the arrival of migrants at their train stations, Joliet officials encouraged residents to report any buses they think may be dropping off migrants.

“If anyone sees a bus that looks like it could be doing that, we’d urge you to call 911,” Joliet Mayor Terry D’Arcy said during Tuesday’s meeting. “Our dispatchers are well aware of how to handle the situation.”

23 buses arrive in New Jersey

In New Jersey, 23 buses carrying more than 1,000 migrants arrived at several train stations across the state, including 11 at a station in Secaucus, that town’s mayor said Wednesday, without specifying when those arrivals happened.

Secaucus Mayor Michael Gonnelli had earlier said that four buses carrying migrants were believed to have arrived at Secaucus’ station from Saturday to Sunday.

Of the 1,017 people aboard the 23 buses statewide, more than 950 of them boarded trains to New York, Gonnelli said Wednesday. The rest traveled to other locations, the mayor added.

Gonnelli did not say where the buses came from.

“While at the moment the impact on our town has been minimal, I plan to do everything I can to be prepared and do what is best for our community,” Gonnelli said.

Transit points in New Jersey have been used by buses carrying migrants to evade a new New York City rule that requires charter bus companies to give advance notice to city officials about their passengers, expected arrival times and locations.

A spokesperson for New York City’s mayor told CNN Wednesday the mayor and his staff have reached out to municipalities to encourage them to take similar executive actions.

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