Activists held a rally Saturday to urge city officials and Mayor Brandon Johnson to reverse its plans to push out potentially thousands of migrants from temporary shelters next week, calling evictions “traumatic” and “damaging.”
Migrants who have stayed longer than 60 days at shelters are scheduled to be evicted on March 16, a policy that could lead to the removal of as many as 5,600 people. Johnson did not commit to sticking with this date when asked earlier in the week, but his spokesperson later told the Tribune that “nothing has changed” since the mayor announced it.
Johnson’s administration pushed back similar deadlines twice in January after first announcing the removal policy in November amid harsh winter weather and pressure from aldermen.
“People are going to be forced out of shelter. People are going to the streets, and people are not given any direction as to how to sustain themselves, how to sustain their families,” said Miguel Alvelo Rivera, the executive director of the Latino Union of Chicago.
Rivera said he’s seen a “vicious cycle” in the city, where migrants either can’t find work or they find day labor jobs that pay poorly. It’s then difficult for them to find shelter, he said, a problem that will exacerbate if evictions begin.
“They want housing, but they can’t pay for it,” he said.
Rivera was joined by at least two dozen others who gathered at Pritzker Park, carrying signs that read “Stop the Evictions” and “Brandon do Better,” while chanting “Refugees are welcome here.”
The March 16 deadline comes as shelter populations have dramatically decreased. Some migrants left Chicago, while others found housing through quicker rental assistance programs. However, it’s possible that the migrant buses from Texas — that brought many of the 36,700 migrants who have arrived in the city since August 2022 — could pick up again.
City officials have said migrants facing removal would be able to request extensions for extenuating circumstances such as medical conditions and upcoming lease start dates. Removed shelter residents could go back to the city’s migrant landing zone and request a new placement if the extension isn’t granted.
“It’s not just about people being forced out. It’s about finding placement for people,” Johnson said Tuesday. “In the event that the deadline does come, people will have an opportunity to re-enter into the shelter system. But the main goal, of course, is to move with expedition people on to a life of sustainability.”
At Saturday’s rally, Reina Isabel Jerez Garcia, who arrived in Chicago about seven months ago from Columbia, said that while she’s faced “horrible conditions” inside the shelters, there are very few options for migrants to find work, meaning housing options are limited.
“They want to put us out on the street,” she said through an interpreter. “What are we going to do when we’re on the street if we don’t have work permits? How can we get work, if we’re not allowed to work?”
Garcia said she’d be forced out of a shelter in mid-April under the policy. If she doesn’t get a work permit, she won’t be able to pay for housing, adding that she worries that she’ll have to beg for money on the street.
“I know Chicago is one of the richest cities in the United States, in the world,” she said. “In such a rich place, why isn’t there enough for all of us.”
Mimi Guiracocha, a nurse volunteering with the a mutual aid group coordinating volunteer help for migrants, said “sustainable and long-term” solutions are needed, including work permits for all migrants, access to subsidized housing and translation services for new arrivals.
“We cannot evict our new neighbors from shelters only to set them up for failure and a second eviction,” she said. “We need enough funding and better living conditions inside current shelters, and then we need to increase the money that we’ve put into subsidized housing and programs and ensure that utilities and other wraparound services are covered.”
