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Migrants in tents outside of the 15th District Chicago Police station in the citys Austin community in October 2023. The city has since relocated the migrants, but now suburban officials are taking measures to regulate unscheduled buses that may be unsafely dropping the asylum-seekers off in municipalities. | File

Monday, January 15, 2024 || By Michael Romain || michael@wearejohnwilk.com

Suburbs across Proviso Township have recently enacted legislation to address the wave of buses carrying migrants to various points across the Chicago area and burdening resource-strapped municipalities.

The villages of Bellwood, Broadview, Hillside and Westchester are among the municipalities whose boards have voted on ordinances or whose mayors have issued executive orders since December designed to introduce fines, penalties and restrictions for buses illegally dropping off passengers.

The primary aim is to safeguard the health and safety of both residents and bus occupants, Hillside village officials explained in a statement posted to the villages website on Dec. 29.

The Village lacks the resources to adequately support these migrants, Hillside officials added. Collaborative efforts with Local, State, County, and regional authorities are underway to address these concerns.

CNN reported in December that since April 2022, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has sent more than 90,000 asylum-seeking migrants from Latin America to various Democratic-run sanctuary cities, including Chicago.

Border authorities encountered more than 225,000 migrants along the US-Mexico border in December alone, marking the highest monthly total recorded since 2000, according to preliminary Homeland Security statistics shared with CNN, the outlet reported.

In their various ordinances and executive orders, Proviso-area village officials explained that the legislation regulating unscheduled buses is time-sensitive due to the onset of the frigid winter weather.

Entities sending such charter buses know, or should know, that the passengers on such buses are likely to seek emergency shelter and other immediate services from the municipality upon or soon after arrival in the municipality, reads the ordinance the Westchester village board unanimously passed on Jan. 9.

Local police departments have been tasked with enforcing the new regulations. In a statement shared with WGN 9, Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson said that any violation of her executive order by any bus company or bus driver, regardless of origin or destination, authorizes the seizure and impoundment of the bus by the Broadview Police Department as well as criminal charges to be filed against the company and driver.

Broadview Police Chief Thomas Mills said his department is requesting bus companies notify us five days in advance, adding that they need to know how many people are coming under the age of 18 (and) how many adults so we know how many are arriving in the Village of Broadview, WGN reported.

Mayor Thompson issued her executive order in December. The Broadview village board is poised to vote on a series of ordinances regulating unscheduled buses at a regular meeting on Jan. 16.

State opens migrant shelter

Earlier this month, Capitol News Illinois reported that another migrant shelter opened in Chicago on Jan. 10, the states latest step in dealing with an influx of more than 30,000 asylum seekers sent to Illinois from states on the southern U.S. Border since summer 2022.

The recently opened shelter is located in a former CVS in Chicagos Little Village neighborhood and is expected to host about 220 migrants. The shelter is part of a $160 million state spending plan for migrant assistance that Gov. JB Pritzker announced in November, Capitol News Illinois reported.

The new site is one of several that houses migrants, mostly from Venezuela, that have arrived in Chicago over the past year. Roughly 250 migrants are currently staying at OHare International Airport and another 280 people slept in city buses at a so-called landing zone facility in the South Loop.

Possible causes of the Venezuelan migrant crisis

Most of the migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border into the United States come from Venezuela. According to data from the Inter-Agency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela, roughly 8 million Venezuelans have fled their homes since the countrys economy collapsed in 2014. Most of those refugees have settled in about two dozen Caribbean and Latin America countries.

Critics of Venezuelas left-wing government have argued that the countrys economic collapse was due to corruption and economic mismanagement.

According to the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington, D.C. think tank, Venezuela is an example of a petrostate, where the government is highly dependent on fossil fuel income, power is concentrated, and corruption is widespread.

Petrostates are vulnerable to what economists call Dutch disease, in which a government develops an unhealthy dependence on natural resource exports to the detriment of other sectors.

When the price of oil plunged from more than $100 per barrel in 2014 to under $30 per barrel in early 2016, Venezuela entered an economic and political spiral, and despite rising prices since then, conditions remain bleak, the Council argued.

But other experts argue that the United States foreign policy also plays a critical role in the Latin American countrys collapse.

Last year, Juan Gonzlez, a reporter and senior fellow at the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago, told WBEZ that the influx of Venezuelan migrants to the United States is a relatively new phenomenon. Its only really happened in the last three or four years. But now Venezuelans have become the fastest growing group of the Latino community in the United States.

Gonzlez said that economic sanctions lodged by the United States against Venezuela constituted an economic war against the country. The sanctions have been under Presidents Obama, Trump and Biden, he said.

The result has been an almost complete economic collapse of the country. Besides perhaps war, it is difficult to think of a tool of foreign policy that today causes more economic and humanitarian destruction than economic sanctions, Gonzlez told WBEZ.

For instance, Citgo petroleum, a major petroleum company in this country, is a Venezuelan-owned company, he added. The Trump administration froze all the assets of Citgo. The company takes in about $24 billion in oil revenues in the United States. None of that money, though, can go to Venezuela, which is its owner.

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Proviso Suburbs Are Regulating Unscheduled Buses As Migrant Crisis Enters Harsh Winter - Village Free Press |

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OTR: Mayor Wu weighs in on migrant shelter crisis in Massachusetts

Updated: 12:29 PM EST Jan 14, 2024

BOSTONS MAYOR MICHELLE WU. WE WILL HEAR MORE FROM GOVERNOR HEALEY ABOUT THIS A LITTLE LATER THIS WEEK. BUT THE COST OF EMERGENCY SHELTERS IS BECOMING A BUDGET BUSTER FOR THE STATE. IT IS DRIVEN BY A SURGE IN MIGRANT FAMILIES. THE GOVERNOR IS NOW CUTTING SPENDING. SEVERAL PROGRAMS BOSTON, A SANCTUARY CITY, IS IN A DIFFICULT POSITION. WHERE IS THIS GOING? THE STATE SAYS THIS IS NOT SUSTAINABLE IN THE LONG TERME. THIS IS AN ISSUE THAT I HEAR FROM EVERY MAYOR I TALK TO ACROSS THE COUNTRY IS A TREMENDOUS STRESS. WE KNOW THAT NATIONALLY, PEOPLE NEED SERVICES, NEED SUPPORTS, AND WE HAVE A SYSTEM WHERE FOLKS ARE FALLING THROUGH THE CRACKS BECAUSE THE BUREAUCRACY IS IS TAKING SO LONG. SOME OF THIS IS IT IN BOSTON, SOME OF THE INTERVENTIONS THAT THE GOVERNOR AND OUR TEAMS HAVE BEEN WORKING ON TOGETHER HAVE BEEN WORKING. WEVE HAD SEVERAL VERY SUCCESSFUL WORK AUTHORIZATION CLINICS TO HELP PEOPLE APPLY FOR THEIR THEIR AUTHORIZATIONS FASTER AND THEN BE ABLE TO GET TO WORK. BUT THIS IS A LARGER CHALLENGE AROUND HOUSING WHERE WE STARTED BECAUSE HOUSING IS SO EXPENSIVE TO BEGIN WITH. WHEN WE HAVE NEW FAMILIES ARRIVING WHO NEED SERVICES, IT IT ALL CONTINUES TO PILE ON. AND SO WE HAVE TO DO MORE TO MAKE SURE OUR SCHOOL SYSTEMS ARE WELCOMING AND HAVE MULTI LINGUAL, UH SERVICES AND SUPPORTS, BUT ALSO ON THE HOUSING FRONT TO MAKE SURE WERE DOING EVERYTHING WE CAN TO BUILD MORE HOUSING. NEXT. NEXT TOPIC I WANT TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT WAS HARVARD. YOU HAVE YOU HAVE TWO DEGREES FROM HARVARD. YOU YOU ARE THE MAYOR OF OF THE LARGEST CITY IN IN NEW ENGLAND. YOU ARE THE MAYOR OF ONE OF THE LARGEST CITIES IN THE UNITED STATES. YOUR NAME HAS COME UP IN CONVERSATION ABOUT WHO THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE ALMA MATER MIGHT BE. WHATS YOUR RESPONSE TO THAT? IS THAT WHAT THE QUESTION IS? I, I THOUGHT WE WERE GOING SOMEWHERE ELSE WITH THAT QUESTION. OKAY, OKAY. I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO PLANS TO LEAVE THIS AMAZING JOB THAT I HAVE. I THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT DECISION, THOUGH, THAT THE UNIVERSITY IS GOING TO MAKE IN A TIME OF TREMENDOUS STRESS AND CHALLENGE FOR ACADEMIA. OVERALL, THERE ARE MANY, MANY WAYS IN WHICH THE THE CONVERSATIONS NATIONALLY ARE, UM, YOU KNOW, ABOUT WHO BELONGS AND WHAT THE ROLE OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IS AND DIVERSITY AND EQUITY AND INCLUSION IN IS BEING DIRECTED AT PARTNERS IN HIGHER EDUCATION. AND SO, UM, YOU KNOW, WE WE KNOW THAT MASSACHUSETTS AND BOSTON IS HOME TO THE, THE BEST OF THE BEST. ITS WHERE THE WORLD LOOKS TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IT MEANS TO LEAD AND TO TEACH, TO EDUCATE AND THEY HAVE A BIG TASK AHEAD OF THEM. AND WELL CONTINUE TO TRY TO SUPPORT WHEREVER WE CAN WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED TO CLAUDINE GAY? I THINK IT IS. UM, I, IM VERY SADDENED. I THINK IT WAS A, A VERY QUICK AND RAPID, UM, SERIES OF MISSTEPS AND MISTAKES THAT SHE TOOK ACCOUNTABILITY FOR THAT GOT WRAPPED INTO A MUCH LARGER CONVERSATION ABOUT ISSUES THAT THAT WERE BEYOND WHAT SHE COULD CONTROL AND BEYOND, UM, THE WHAT YOU NORMALLY THINK OF AS WITHIN THE PURVIEW OF A UNIVERSITY. AND SO THERE ARE, UM, DECISION POINTS ALL ACROSS THE COUNTRY AS WE HEAD INTO THIS NEXT YEAR AND THIS NEXT ELECTION CYCLE, ABOUT HOW WE INTERACT WITH EACH OTHER, HOW WE COME TOGETHER AND UNITE CITIES ARE DEFINITELY IN THE CROSSHAIRS. WAS SHE WRONGED CLAUDINE GAY, IN YOUR OPINION, WRONGED. I MEAN, SHE SHE HAS MADE HER DECISION AT THIS POINT AND SHE HAS SPOKEN PUBLICLY ABOUT THE, UM, STATEMENTS THAT SHE WISHES HAD GONE DIFFERENTLY. SHE I DO BELIEVE, THOUGH, THAT THERE WAS VERY MUCH A TARGETED EFFORT HERE BECAUSE OF WHO SHE WAS. THE INSTITUTION SHE REPRESENTED, AND A MOMENT WHERE THERE ARE PEOPLE TRYING TO DISMANTLE THE PROGRESS TO INCLUDE MORE PEOPLE AND TO INCLUDE ALL OF US IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN LEADERSHIP. THIS WAS A THIS WAS VERY MUCH CONNECTED TO THE SAME, UH, SOURCE OF TRYING TO DISMANTLE DEI AND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AND RESHAPE WHO HAS ACCESS AND WHO BELONGS HERE. WE CANT LET YOU LEAVE WITHOUT ASKING IF YOU ARE PLANNING TO RUN FOR A SECOND TIME. I HAVE, WHICH IS WHY WE KIND OF TRIED TO ASK ABOUT THE HARVARD PRISON. RIGHT? RIGHT, RIGHT, RIGHT. I KNOW, HAPPY BIRTHDAY. ARE YOU RUNNING RIGHT? UM. I LOVE MY JOB. I HAVE A LOT TO DO. AS AS YOU HEARD EARLIER IN THE WEEK, MANY OF OUR PLANS THAT IVE LAID OUT WILL REQUIRE SOME TIME TO UNFOLD. AND TO REALLY IMPLEMENT AND GET GOING. THERE WILL BE PLENTY OF TIME LATER FOR POLITICAL FRUITION. IS THAT. OH, I WOULD LOVE TO. I WOULD LOVE TO. UM, BUT, YOU KNOW, THERES A LOT OF WORK AHEAD OF US AND IM FOCUSED ON GETTING THAT WORK DONE. AND WHEN THERES TIME FOR POLITICS, WELL GET TO THAT IN THE FUTURE. BUT RIGHT

OTR: Mayor Wu weighs in on migrant shelter crisis in Massachusetts

Updated: 12:29 PM EST Jan 14, 2024

The mayor of Boston also addresses speculation that she will step down and become president of her alma mater, Harvard University.

The mayor of Boston also addresses speculation that she will step down and become president of her alma mater, Harvard University.

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OTR: Mayor Wu weighs in on migrant shelter crisis in Mass. - WCVB Boston

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Chicago migrants move into shelter former Little Village CVS at 27th and Pulaski; Gov. JB Pritzker responds to migrant crisis  WLS-TV

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Chicago migrants move into shelter former Little Village CVS at 27th and Pulaski; Gov. JB Pritzker responds to migrant crisis - WLS-TV

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New York Gov. Kathy Hochul will unveil a budget proposal for fiscal 2024 that includes $2.4 billion, according to a new report.

The Associated Press reports that Hochul's plan includes funding for healthcare and other areas in which New York City has expressed a need for assistance in handling the thousands of migrants Texas has been busing to the city.

Hochul's plan also includes funds for shelters and other housing opportunities for migrants in need of a place to stay.

New York City's struggle to house and care for migrants who have arrived in the city has prompted Mayor Eric Adams to call on President Joe Biden to declare a state of emergency and provide federal assistance.

New York City officials have estimated that the increase in migrants will cost the city $10 billion over the next year and a half. The state of New York has already earmarked $1.9 billion in emergency funds to handle the influx of asylum seekers.

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New York Gov. Hochul To Propose $2 Billion to Deal With Migrant Crisis - The Messenger

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New York Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed an executive budget Tuesday for Fiscal Year 2025 that will reach a record-breaking $233 billion funding plan if approved exceeding last years $229 billion package that includes funding for public safety, health care initiatives, education and affordability, as well as money to address the state's ongoing migrant crisis.

The big three are school aid, Medicaid and migrants, budget director Blake Washington told Spectrum News Monday.

He said spending increases in those three sectors, as well as a drop in federal pandemic aid, have driven up state operating funds by $5.9 billion.

We've committed $1.9 billion to the migrant crisis and what we're trying to do tonight is just figure out where that number lands in [2025], he said.

Hochul said she will be traveling to Washington, D.C. on Friday to ask the Biden administration for more money to deal with the migrant crisis but didn't say if she'd be meeting with the president directly. She also urged Congress, particularly the House of Representatives, to "remain at the negotiating table" for an immigration agreement.

Hochul's budget calls for $2.4 billion to help manage the migrant crisis, including $500 million from the state's reserves.

Despite the added costs of the migrant crisis, Washington said there are no recommendations calling for increased taxes on high earners or corporations.

He wants to scale back.

We've got to get back to a level where our spending meets our revenues and that certainly was not the case, he said.

We have to just reflect those new realities and we have to actually be responsible to the long term without raising taxes, without raiding reserves, without gimmicks we have to actually just do this budget and get back to a more sort of acceptable way of budgeting, where we provide for the needs that are out there.

The state wants to get control of rising Medicaid costs largely driven by increased overall enrollment and managed long-term care programs.

We cant spend like theres no tomorrow because tomorrow always comes," Hochul said.

School aid will also increase across the board by $825 million bringing total education funding to roughly $35 billion.

But Washington said the budget office is proposing a change in school aid funding that seeks to even out aid disbursement between wealthy and poorer districts an idea in the past that has been opposed by wealthier districts in the suburbs.

We have a proposal to modify that and to step down from a state support for the districts that are overfunded relative to their foundation aid level and to try to right size and drive the resources to the districts that are growing and high poverty, he said.

In higher education, Hochul is proposing $207 million to go to operations at the State University of New York and City University of New York, as well as $1.2 billion for capital projects at higher education institutions.

In regards to public safety, Hochul is also proposing investments of $40 million to combat retail theft, $40 million to combat domestic violence and $35 million to combat hate crimes.

Meanwhile, New York City Mayor Eric Adams is also on track to reveal his preliminary budget plans for the citys fiscal year, which ends on June 30.

He said last week that he shaved off 20% of the citys current migrant-related expenditures.

But the state is already on track to spend around $2 billion on housing, legal services and National Guard personnel, mainly concentrated on efforts within the five boroughs.

President Joe Bidens administration has awarded less than $200 million to help with costs, drawing constant criticism from Adams as more than 100,000 migrants have arrived in the city since spring of 2022.

Washington said the state would also love to slim down expenses and is eager to revise projections in coming years.

Buses are still arriving and still a big headache, he said.

The state is also paying for leases for emergency migrant shelters at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, Floyd Bennett Field and the Lincoln Correctional Facility.

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Hochul reveals $233 billion budget proposal - Spectrum News NY1

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