With a deadline looming next week, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signaled the city has not decided whether it will follow through on plans to push out potentially thousands of migrants from temporary shelters.
Johnson did not commit to a plan Tuesday when asked whether he would stick with the scheduled March 16 date when migrants who have stayed longer than 60 days at shelters will be evicted. His administration pushed back similar deadlines twice in January after first announcing the removal policy in November.
“We’re doing everything in our power to demonstrate compassion. Now, as far as whether or not we will extend deadlines, we haven’t gotten to that point,” Johnson said at a Tuesday news conference.
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Johnson spokesperson Ronnie Reese later told the Tribune “nothing has changed” since the mayor announced the removals would be delayed until March 16.
“The decision was made,” Reese said.
The policy could lead to the removal of as many as 5,673 migrant residents, Brandie Knazze, head of the city’s Department of Family and Support Services, said when the March 16 date was announced. Over 2,000 more people could be forced out by the end of April under the policy, she added.
Migrants facing removal would be able to request extensions for extenuating circumstances such as medical conditions and upcoming lease start dates, city officials said. If an extension is not granted, removed shelter residents could go back to the city’s migrant landing zone and request a new shelter placement.
The March 16 deadline comes as migrants across the city leave shelters in droves. Shelter populations have decreased dramatically as some migrants leave Chicago and others find housing through quicker rental assistance programs. Five shelters have closed since Feb. 9.
Still, the possibility lingers of migrant buses sent from Texas to Chicago once again coming in droves. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who organized the buses that have brought many of the 36,412 migrants who have arrived in Chicago since August 2022, “is determined to score political points by using human beings,” Johnson said.
Resettling as many shelter residents as possible is the city’s “main goal,” Johnson said.
“It’s not just about people being forced out. It’s about finding placement for people,” he said. “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.”
The mayor’s first delay to the policy in early January came as the city braced for its harshest winter storm of the season. The second delay in late January was announced amid pressure from aldermen, including close progressive allies of the mayor.
Sixteen aldermen signed on to a petition expressing “grave concerns” with the well-being of asylum-seekers facing removal then. Johnson delayed the policy three days before it was set to go into effect.
“The 60-day eviction policy poses a significant threat to the health and safety of new arrivals,” the aldermen’s letter said. “To put it simply: the city should not be in the business of handing out eviction notices.”
Pushing potentially thousands of migrants who can’t work out of shelters and away from resources could cause a spike in homelessness and even push some people to crime, Ald. Andre Vasquez, 40th, said Tuesday.
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Vasquez, who joined council colleagues to push for delays in January, said he would do so once again.
“It’s pretty inhumane when you’re telling people who can’t find rental assistance and can’t find legal work that they can’t have shelter,” he said. “I know it’s a challenge, but I think there’s an understanding of what the right thing to do is.”
Ald. Nicole Lee, 11th, said the mayor’s administration didn’t commit to delaying the shelter removals in a briefing to aldermen Friday. She echoed Vasquez’s concerns that forcing migrants out could lead to more homelessness.
“I think we end up with a lot more people on the street. If we don’t have a plan for them, where else do they go?” she said. “The situation that we’re in is an impossible situation.”
Johnson deputy chief of staff Cristina Pacione-Zayas said after the last delay that giving migrants 60-day notices to leave shelter spaces should not be labeled an “eviction.”
“It’s a misnomer,” she said. “What’s implicit in that is that people have not been provided resources, have not been connected to a case manager and are just being pushed out.”