A not-so-warm welcome for thousands of migrants now sleeping outside in Chicago
CHICAGO — Frangeny Mendoza, 27, huddled on a thin fleece Salvation Army blanket next to her husband, Pedro Matos, 30, and 8-year-old son, Ediomar, Tuesday night in Edna White Century Garden, which over the past month has become a tent encampment for hundreds of migrants waiting for shelter placement at the nearby Morgan Park police station.
The family from Venezuela, who were put on a bus by city officials in El Paso, Texas, and sent to Chicago without knowing where they were going, spent their first three nights in the sanctuary city sleeping outside on the ground.
“It’s so cold here, but we have nowhere to go. We don’t have anyone here,” she said in Spanish.
Wind and rain have descended on Chicago at the same time as unprecedented. For months, who have been sent on buses by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott since August 2022, placing them in the lobbies of police stations.
