Hundreds of migrants housed at O’Hare as Chicago deals with ongoing crisis

Hundreds of migrants are living in Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport while the city attempts to find them permanent housing. Since August 2022, over 15,000 migrants seeking asylum arrived in Chicago, according to city data. Buses and planes carrying migrants from the southern border continue arriving in the Windy City — 59 buses arrived in September alone.

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Deputy Chief of Staff Cristina Pacione-Zayas says city officials are doing the best they can to mitigate the influx.

“All we can do is respond, receive and do our best to meet the moment,” Pacione-Zayas said in an interview with CBS News in Chicago.

According to Pacione-Zayas, Chicago added more than a dozen shelters since May and resettled about 3,000 people. Nearly 200,000 meals are served to migrants weekly and the city partners with groups to get them medical care.

However, the city is running out of resources to care for them. CBS News in Chicago is reporting that nearly 9,300 migrants are staying at 21 city shelters, and more than 2,300 are sleeping on the floors at the city’s police stations and airports.

At O’Hare International, nearly 500 migrants are living behind a black curtain in Terminal #1 in a space smaller than a city block. The migrants are sleeping on cardboard pads and sharing airport bathrooms. Medical care is limited, and donations aren’t as easily accepted here because of security concerns.  

At a Chicago City Council meeting on Friday, Sept. 29, frustrations boiled over regarding the city’s handling of the migrant crisis. 

City leaders and citizens criticized officials for — in their view — prioritizing migrants over struggling Chicago residents. 

“Those are the people we should’ve been paying first,” said Ald. Jeanette Taylor, who represents Chicago’s 20th ward. “Because them is the people from our community.”

Chicago inked a $29 million deal with a private contractor to move migrants from the temporary shelters to massive military grade tent camps before winter.

However, some of the city’s alderpeople reject the idea of building a tent city, but say Mayor Johnson doesn’t have many options.

“They feel as though they don’t have any other options,” said Ald. Andre Vasquez, representative for Chicago’s 40th ward. “And that’s why they’re going for it this way. It’s not like they’re hop, skipping and jumping to get a tent set up. It’s difficult for everybody involved.”

City officials say they’ve received $41 million in federal funding to help with the migrant influx, but they have expressed that it’s not enough.

In the committee meeting, Johnson and some of Chicago’s alderpeople said they want to visit the southern border to see the migrant crisis for themselves. There has been no word on when that trip is expected to take place.