Illinois opening new migrant intake center at Chicago bus landing zone
CHICAGO (CBS) -- State officials have started building a new migrant intake center on the site of Chicago's designated landing zone for buses bringing newly arrived asylum seekers to the city.
As CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot reported, five more buses had been set to arrive before the end of the day on Wednesday.
The Illinois Department of Human Services confirmed six heated tents are under construction at the Chicago landing zone at 800 S. Desplaines St., just blocks from the city's Greyhound bus station, the Ogilvie Transportation Center, and Union Station. They're expected to open "in the coming weeks."
Until now, the city has been using buses as temporary warming shelters for migrants who have arrived at the landing zone, until they can find a spot in a shelter.
Gov. JB Pritzker first announced plans for a new migrant intake center in mid-November, as part of $160 million in new state funding to address the migrant crisis.
The new intake center will help provide various services to newly arrived migrants, and for those not staying in Chicago, will help connect them with family or friends already in the U.S.
IDHS said to date, the state has reunited more than 2,500 migrants with loved ones so that they don't need to stay in the city's shelters.
State officials estimated with the expanded staffing and services at the intake center, migrants needing to stay in shelters can be reduced by 10%.
At least three buses arrived at the landing site on Wednesday, dropping off migrants at the new intake center building.
Marino Lozada, a migrant from Venezuela who arrived in Chicago 15 days ago, said he has family in South Carolina and Denver, and he plans to reunite with them.
Lozada said he's ready to work and is willing to take any job offered to him to make a living in the U.S.
"I'm ready to do whatever kind of work," Lozada said.
As of Wednesday morning, more than 14,500 migrants were living in one of the 27 city-run shelters in Chicago; with another 243 migrants who are waiting for a shelter spot staying at O'Hare International Airport, 21 waiting at police district stations, and 39 waiting at the landing zone.
City officials said they were expecting five buses of migrants to arrive at the landing zone on Wednesday.
Meantime, the state is continuing work to convert a former CVS pharmacy in Little Village into a 220-bed shelter for migrants. The state said it also has teamed up with New Life Centers, a Chicago-based non-profit that has been helping the city and state move migrants into permanent homes, to operate a temporary shelter for newly arrived migrants at a Chicago hotel until the new Little Village shelter opens later this month.
State officials said they decided to set up that hotel shelter after more than 60 buses brought approximately 2,500 migrants from Texas to Chicago and the surrounding suburbs between Dec. 20 and Dec. 27.
After the Chicago City Council last month approved tougher penalties for bus companies that drop off migrants without prior notice, or outside the city's designated landing zone, buses from Texas started dropping off migrants in random suburbs, and placing them on Metra trains to Chicago. Texas also has chartered two private flights of migrants to the Chicago area in recent weeks, including a flight of 350 migrants that arrived in Rockford over the New Year's weekend, before the asylum seekers were bused to the suburbs.
The influx of buses carrying migrants to the suburbs has prompted many suburbs to impose their own tougher penalties on the so-called "rogue" buses. Lockport was the latest suburb to approve such a move unanimously Wednesday evening.
DuPage County officials said, that since Dec. 14, more than 70 buses have arrived at Metra stations in DuPage County, bringing in nearly 3,000 migrants. Each bus typically has a coordinator on board who provides the migrants with Metra tickets to Chicago.