Mayor Brandon Johnson on Friday offered a peek at his plans to establish migrant camps throughout the city and move nearly 1,600 currently living inside Chicago police stations into large tents before winter — his administration’s boldest effort yet to get a handle on a humanitarian crisis that has left local officials vexed.

The mayor said he will “move with expediency” to transition asylum-seekers into “more suitable” base camps as migrants wait for spots in city-run shelters. As of a week ago, 1,576 migrants were living in Chicago police stations and another 418 were sleeping inside O’Hare International Airport, according to city data.

“We’ve identified multiple locations around the city that can be suitable to treat the families of individuals, who by law are seeking asylum constitutionally, legally, to have a place that recognizes their dignity,” Johnson said.

The new effort, first reported by the Sun-Times, suggested a renewed urgency by the Johnson administration to remove migrants from living for days or weeks inside Chicago police stations’ lobbies. The crowded floors have become a symbol of the new arrivals’ plight upon arriving in the nation’s third-largest city that professes to welcome all.

The mayor has yet to reveal details about the timeline or locations of the camps that migrants will be directed to in lieu of police stations, though sources briefed by the Johnson administration Friday said officials projected costs could be significant.

Sources who attended the briefings said the mayor’s team indicated the current estimated $144 million for the migrant mission is not sustainable. Projected expenditures were anticipated to hit $238.3 million by the end of this year but that number could reach $302 million when factoring in the new tent encampment sites, the sources said.

Meanwhile, Johnson did not rule out new or increased levies to pay for the services.

[ A year in, Chicago’s migrant crisis exacerbated by City Hall and state delays, hefty contracts and questionable decisions ]

“So the sacrifices that will be required in this moment will be necessary from all of us, every single level of government,” Johnson said at an unrelated news conference Friday when asked about whether additional revenue will be needed.

“Look, I can tell you that the cost of inaction will be far more substantial,” he said. “The point here is: Police stations being used as landing zones, that’s what I inherited. And I’ve said that from the very beginning that this is not dignified. So my plan is to move, with expediency, families out of police stations into housing and shelter that’s more suitable.”

Ald. Anthony Beale, 9th, who joined the mayor at the news conference in his Far South Side ward announcing federal funding for an extension of the CTA’s Red Line, told reporters afterward that he thinks tent encampments are “not the right thing to be doing.”

He also said he would be hard-pressed to ask taxpayers funding it to continue making sacrifices.

“We have to be compassionate. … At the same time, at some point we have to stop people from coming to Chicago because we cannot continue to absorb people coming and supporting them like this every single day,” Beale said. Asked about alternative solutions, the alderman said, “Well, you can turn the buses back around and send them back where they came from.”

But Ald. Andre Vasquez, chairman of the Immigrant and Refugee Rights Committee, said such a move is a non-starter for him.

“I understand the sentiment of like the capacity issue and the fact that we have to also make sure we’re taking care of the communities that have been around prior that also need the support. Right, I do understand that tension,” said Vasquez, 40th. “That being said, we’re not playing tennis or Ping-Pong with buses. It’s not the way you solve a problem.”

Ald. Brian Hopkins, 2nd, said he was reassured to learn how well the proposed tent structures could shield migrants from harsh elements, but added the fiscal conundrum looms. The administration showed aldermen examples of large tents in New York City as an example, and Hopkins said he was told they will have metal frames, thick insulation and heating.

“It’s a slight incremental improvement over the floor of a police station lobby. So, in that regard, I support it. It’s the right thing to do,” Hopkins said. “But it’s not a permanent solution and it has its own limitations. So if we’re going to talk about this as a temporary measure, we need to focus more on what the ultimate end game is here. And we’re still really not doing that.”

Each of the 50 City Council members will be asked to identify two to three “suitable sites” in their wards that can shelter at least 200 migrants and have access to showers, according to briefing materials. The tents are intended to house 500 to 1,000 migrants, Hopkins said.

But Hopkins said the city is “already over capacity,” noting he was informed by other officials that five buses were on their way from Texas as of Friday afternoon.

“We expect they’ll arrive over the weekend, and there literally is not a single bed available to accommodate them,” Hopkins said. “There isn’t even floor space for another sleeping bag in a police station. There is literally nowhere for them to go, and yet we know they’re on their way.”

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, who also was present at the CTA announcement, defended Johnson’s leadership and said he and other Democrats in Congress have a comprehensive immigration bill ready but the migrant crisis “has been manipulated for political purposes at the expense of these poor people.”

“(The mayor) is trying to make the best of a very challenging situation,” Durbin said. “The bottom line is this: We are in this predicament today because of the failure of the United States Congress and the president over 30 years to pass immigration reform in Washington. That’s why we face these extreme situations.”

Vasquez said he shared the same concerns as Beale regarding the harsh Chicago winter, and responded to a question about raising new revenue with an assertion that only the state and federal governments have the money required to sustain such operations.

“I don’t know that there’s anything that can be done at a municipal level that can take on that capacity,” Vasquez said. “I don’t think there’s any easy answers. … There’s a lot of concerns. I don’t think it’s ideal, but I don’t think anybody — including the administration — thinks it’s ideal.”

Chicago Tribune’s A.D. Quig contributed.

ayin@chicagotribune.com

Originally Published: Sep 08, 2023 at 1:54 pm