Outgoing Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot declared a state of emergency Tuesday in response to the thousands of migrants who have settled in the city, often under harsh living conditions, after crossing the US southern border to seek asylum.
The executive order marked the outgoing administration's grimmest prognosis yet on how Chicago's most vulnerable new arrivals will fare as the city braces for the imminent end of its runway on financial assistance.
It came nine months after Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, began shepherding recent refugees from Central and South America onto one-way bus rides to Chicago, arguing that liberal "sanctuary cities" should readily take on more of the burden stemming from the border crisis.
More than 8,000 such migrants have since come to the city, in what Lightfoot on Tuesday again derided as a "political stunt" by Abbott while also conceding the buses will not stop.
"We've reached a breaking point in our response to our humanitarian crisis primarily manufactured by him for cynical political purposes," Lightfoot said in a news conference, noting another 48 families were "shipped" from Texas that afternoon.
Signed with less than a week before Lightfoot is set to leave office, the emergency declaration frees the mayor's administration to move around emergency funds and request the aid of the Illinois National Guard, though Lightfoot clarified the latter resort is not needed — for now.
But with pandemic-era federal border restrictions expiring this week, the worst is likely yet to come. That measure, known as Title 42, has allowed the immediate expulsion of asylum-seekers at the US-Mexico border in order to curb the possible spread of disease, and its end could spell a new era of record migration within days.
Chicago is seeing its next big wave of new arrivals, however, despite the safety net that awaits them growing more frayed by the week. Families, including children and pregnant women, have resorted to sleeping on the floor of crowded police stations, while more than a hundred daily new arrivals add to the need at untenable rates.
A City Council committee hearing on Tuesday did clear the way for $51 million in budget surpluses to be funnelled toward migrant services, but that funding would barely tide over the city's beleaguered support system until mid-June.
City Department of Family and Support Services Commissioner Brandie Knazze struck an urgent tone as she briefed aldermen ahead of the vote.
"There are no good options based on where we are, but we have to deal with the hand we have been dealt," Knazze said. "There will need to be sacrifice in order to keep up with the inflow that we are receiving."
