Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) is offering additional funding to Chicago suburbs to support their communities, but with a catch: The suburbs will only receive the money if they agree to house immigrants who have been bused to the Windy City and neighboring towns since last year.
The state announced $17 million to address the migrant crisis. Over 38,000 immigrants have arrived in Chicago since August 2022, when the first bus sent by Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) arrived in the city. Pritzker said the millions of dollars in funding will go toward welcome centers, work permit applications, housing, and healthcare.
Pritzker and the Illinois General Assembly appropriated $42.5 million from the General Revenue Fund to the state’s human services department in the fiscal 2024 budget. The $17 million in funds comes from an Illinois Department of Human Services program tasked with building capacity in municipalities outside of Chicago that welcome immigrants.
The grants will come through a partnership with the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus, with $11 million going toward suburbs to “welcome and support recent arrivals living in their communities.”
Another $4 million will create 13 Illinois Welcoming Centers to provide case management for immigrants seeking shelter, employment, and other resources. The final $2 million will go to Immigrant Family Resources Program providers. These agencies provide translation services, public benefits information, and advocacy services as immigrants settle into a new community.
“This new funding builds on our commitment to support Illinois cities that are stepping up to help asylum seekers,” Pritzker said. “As we continue to call for further federal support, and as Illinois takes a stand against the callous ways Texas Gov. Abbott is using human beings as political pawns, these grants will lend support where it is needed throughout the state.”
Whether suburbs will take the financial incentives to open their communities remains to be seen. Since cities such as Chicago have imposed heavy restrictions on homeless immigrant dropoffs due to reaching maximum capacity, bus travel companies from Texas have been circumventing the rules to drop immigrants off in suburbs such as Naperville, Illinois, and Oak Park, Illinois, so that they can board transit systems into the city.
Several villages, including Schaumburg, Illinois, and Elk Grove, Illinois, have passed ordinances preventing immigrants from being housed in hotels. Oak Park began evicting 150 immigrants from a town hotel and the YMCA last year, to be complete by the end of this month.
“It shouldn’t be all these mayors fixing the problem,” Elk Grove Village Mayor Craig Johnson said in December 2023. “It’s not our job. We’re not built to handle this. Hopefully, the federal government says, OK, let’s fix this problem.”
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Ray Hanania, a spokesperson for Cicero, Illinois, said last month that the town approved a measure to fine bus companies $750 per person for letting out homeless immigrants. He said other cities should follow suit.
“It’s wrong to drop people on the street with nowhere to go,” Hanania said. “We think every community should do this to prevent this. They need to force the state to come up with a better plan for homeless people.”