Citylab
Chicago Mayor Proposes $5 Million Fund for Arriving Migrants
- City seeking federal assistance with costs of support services
- Texas has sent 1,500 migrants to Illinois since August
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Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has proposed a $5 million “contingency” fund in her 2023 budget to help with future costs for migrants as buses full of asylum seekers continue to arrive from Texas, in what Democrats and immigrant rights groups have widely criticized as an inhumane political stunt.
About 1,500 people from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, among other places, have arrived in the Windy City since Aug. 31, when Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, began sending migrants to Chicago, New York City and Washington, D.C. Chicago has housed more than 100 migrants in nearby hotels and will continue to provide shelter and case management to all arrivals, officials have said.