CHICAGO — Maria and her two young children huddled together for warmth in front of a vacant Downtown storefront on a cold December afternoon.
The family, from Venezuela, has been staying at a shelter, but Maria said they camp out on Michigan Avenue to pass the time.
“They’re not helping us anymore,” said Maria, wrapped in a blanket, her bundled-up newborn on her lap while her 3-year-old played with her phone.
If their shelter closes, Maria doesn’t know where they’ll go, she said.
She has no plan, no safety net.
More than two years after busloads of migrants began arriving in Chicago from the southern border, many of the new arrivals are broke, unhoused or facing eviction, prohibited from working legally and unable to return safely to their home countries — essentially stuck in limbo.
Yet local government officials have scaled back resources for recent arrivals by closing shelters and ending rental assistance, citing a decline in new arrivals and budget constraints.
The city’s emergency migrant shelter system, for example, will be merged with the homeless shelter system by year’s end. The migrant landing zone, a Near West Side site where officials first met and provided resources to recently dropped-off migrants, will also close Dec. 31.
At the same time, the incoming Trump administration is promising mass deportations and anti-immigrant policies. The incoming border czar, Tom Homan, recently told local Republicans that those efforts “will start right here in Chicago.”
Organizers and advocates worry the surge in immigration enforcement is coming as migrants already face deepening challenges to get by.
To understand those compounding struggles, Block Club talked to dozens of newly arrived migrants and advocates working on the front lines to help them.
Maria, from Venezuela, holds hands with her five-month-old child while seeking warmth in a shuttered storefront’s entryway along Michigan Avenue in the Loop on Nov. 25, 2024. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago
Chicago’s migrant crisis began in August 2022, when 60 people were bused from Texas to Chicago. Since then, over 51,000 migrants have been brought to Chicago from border states including Texas.
RELATED: After The Buses: Meet The Migrants At The Center Of Texas’ Manufactured Crisis
Like thousands of other migrants over the past two-plus years, N. and her children moved out of a shelter and into an apartment thanks to a rental assistance program. Through shelter staff, N. received $300 per month, enabling her to stay in a house on the South Side with her kids, ages 10 and 18.
The Asylum Seeker Rental Assistance Program program provided three months of rental assistance to migrants who arrived in the city’s shelters before Nov. 17, 2023.
The state program — a partnership between the Illinois Department of Human Services, the Illinois Housing Development Authority, state-funded housing organizations and Catholic Charities — helped more than 6,000 families get apartments after it launched in the fall of 2022.
N, and her daughter — both Colombian migrants — live in South Chicago, as seen on Dec. 17, 2024. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago
Migrants who participated in the program were paired with case managers, and those facing eviction can get additional help through a court-based rental assistance program, said Daisy Contreras, spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Human Services.
The state initiative “has allowed thousands of eligible households the opportunity to start their journey to self-sufficiency,” she said.
But the state program stopped taking applications this summer due to a lack of funding, Contreras said.
RELATED: Lost In Translation: Migrant Kids Struggle In Segregated Chicago Schools
Contreras said the state doesn’t track where residents end up after they end leases supported by the program “since individuals and families have freedom of movement.”
Yet a high percentage of asylum seekers in Chicago are living doubled or tripled up, and they are patching together meager incomes from underground jobs to make rent, according to immigrant rights leaders and case managers working closely with migrant families.
“A lot of people who got rental assistance … their landlords are starting to harass them, [saying] they’re behind on rent, they’re taking them to court,” said Antonio Gutierrez, an organizer with Organized Communities Against Deportations. “We’re anticipating thousands of people who were placed in these programs, unless there’s an extension, they’re all going to be facing eviction.”
N. is one of the struggling renters.
After several months, N.’s rental assistance ran out, and now she owes her landlord about $4,000 in back rent — a sum she can’t afford because she doesn’t have a job and is still waiting for her federal work permit to be processed, she said. Without a permit, she can’t hold a job legally.
N. said she fears her family will be kicked out and forced to live on the street in the cold Chicago winter. Like other migrants interviewed for this story, N. asked not to be fully identified due to fear of legal trouble or deportation.
Immigrant rights groups are concerned others could face the same fate. They expect Mayor Brandon Johnson’s shelter plan — closing the city’s migrant shelters and merging them with existing homeless shelters — will lead to a surge of migrants sleeping on city streets.
“I’m desperate. I can’t sleep thinking of what could happen,” N. said. “We have to wait, but the people I owe can’t wait.”
N and her daughter — both Colombian migrants — pose for a portrait in their South Chicago home, as seen on Dec. 17, 2024. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago
On a recent afternoon, a trio of young men from Venezuela approached people walking near Millennium Park to see if they were interested in buying colorful eyelets for their boots, a craft known as “tartaleria” in Venezuela.
They get materials from a Downtown shop owner and travel around the city selling the metal embellishments, they said, using pliers to attach them to customers’ shoes on the spot. It’s their main source of income.
They said the money they make helps them pay rent for a shared room on Cicero Avenue, about an hour’s ride from Millennium Park.
But what they need most are stable jobs.
“We will do anything before hurting someone. We are willing to bow down and work on people’s shoes before stealing,” one of the three young men said. “We want a job, and to do better.”
Migrants from Venezuela replace sell metal eyelets for shoes near Millennium Park in the Loop on Nov. 25, 2024. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago
At this stage of the humanitarian crisis, many newly arrived migrants in the city are barely scraping by as they wait for federal work permits.
For migrants, the path to legal employment is long and complicated. They only qualify for the coveted work permits if they have temporary protective status or parole status or if they’ve been in the country 150 days after filing an asylum claim.
And even if their application is approved, they typically have to wait several months for their permits because the processing system is so backlogged.
Only a small fraction of new arrivals in Chicago had received work permits by the start of the year, according to CBS2. And the number hasn’t increased much since then, advocates said.
“Many [migrants] are still waiting for their work permits even though they follow every single policy,” Gutierrez said.
Out of desperation, thousands are waiting in long lines at food pantries across the city and at the Illinois Department of Human Services center in Humboldt Park — even though they don’t qualify for most government benefits.
Like the trio in Millennium Park, Yubeli is waiting on a work permit. Without one, she’s had to take low-paying, off-the-books jobs.
Yubeli has been doing housekeeping for the owner of a clothing warehouse near her apartment in Pilsen, but only when the owner needs help. She doesn’t make any more than $150 a week, a fraction of her $1,000 monthly rent — not nearly enough to support her family.
The only real solution to her financial woes is a stable job, Yubeli said, but she’s been able to make it through, and even build new skills, thanks to the social service organization Onward Neighborhood House.
Yubeli said she’s found “a community of support” through the Belmont Cragin nonprofit, where she’s taking English classes and a course that helps newly arrived migrants work through trauma.
Case workers at Onward Neighborhood House are helping Yubeli apply for rental assistance and medical benefits. They’ve also given her donated boots, sweaters and other necessities for her kids, making the wait for a work permit more bearable.
“Onward House has provided a lot of help, love and support,” she said. “I can trust the nonprofit staff who have helped me.”
Jessica Bustamante, social worker for Onward Neighborhood House, helps recent arrivals at the Belmont-Cragin organization’s state welcoming center. Credit: Mina Bloom/Block Club Chicago
As government assistance fades, Onward Neighborhood House is among thousands of social service organizations across the city filling in the gap, helping connect migrants with immigration lawyers and provide them with warm coats, food and other critical resources like rental assistance.
When Onward Neighborhood House opened its state welcoming center in 2021, the program had one employee. Now the program has 10 and is expanding to meet a ballooning demand for services, said Emilio Araujo, Onward House’s director of development and communications.
“Everybody comes here [to the United States] with a dream. When they come here, they can see that not everything is easy,” said Jessica Bustamante, social worker for Onward Neighborhood House.
But at Onward Neighborhood House and similar organizations across the city, funding for such programs is at risk because of the state’s budget shortfall and Trump’s anti-immigrant plans, organization leaders said.
Caught in the middle are migrants like Yubeli. She dreams of getting a steady job and helping her family in Colombia.
“I want to send [my family] a gift of flowers on their birthday, like we used to gift each other,” she said.
Very few of Chicago’s new arrivals have seen any movement in their asylum cases because of a significant backlog in the federal court system, said Lisa Koop, national director of legal services for the Chicago-based National Immigrant Justice Center. Many will wait several years for a resolution to their cases.
RELATED: A ‘Dire’ Shortage Of Lawyers Making Chicago’s Migrant Crisis Even Worse
Under Trump, immigration court proceedings will very likely stagnate even more, “which is going to leave families in limbo for longer,” Koop said.
A single mother from Ecuador said she hasn’t even applied for asylum because she’s daunted by the process.
The mother, who declined to provide her name for safety reasons, is one of many who sell candy on Downtown streets as a matter of survival.
A mother from Ecuador sells candy at the corner of Monroe Street and Wabash Avenue in The Loop on Nov. 25, 2024. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago
On a bitter cold November afternoon, she sat on Wabash Avenue under the “L” tracks with a plastic bin filled with chocolate bars and packs of gum.
She looked for signs that passersby want to buy $3 Mamba fruit chews or $2 chocolate bars. Her 2-year-old toddler, wrapped in a fleece blanket on her lap, didn’t stir when trains rumbled overhead.
“We have to fight,” she said. “What will we eat if I don’t work?”
This Story Was Produced By The Watch
Block Club’s investigations have changed laws, led to criminal federal investigations and held the powerful accountable. Email tips to The Watch at [email protected] and subscribe or donate to support this work.
