Lightfoot asks for tens of millions more in state money for migrants, citing arrivals from Texas; state says funding will cease in January

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is asking Illinois state legislators for $54 million to help fund emergency services to asylum-seeking individuals and migrants.

Lightfoot made the request in a letter to state legislators from Chicago, obtained by the Tribune. She noted that Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration sent a letter to the city saying the state is “out of funds and will no longer be able to support city migrant services efforts as of February 1, 2023.”

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“The city is grateful to the state of Illinois for its partnership and collaboration on this mission to date, but we are simply unable to provide migrant services at today’s levels after February 1, 2023 if the state withdraws its financial support,” Lightfoot wrote in the letter, dated Thursday.

“As a Chicago Delegation Member, I respectfully request you to advocate for $53.5 million to the city of Chicago for emergency services to migrant and asylum-seeking individuals in a supplemental appropriations bill that may be considered before the 102nd Illinois General Assembly adjourns.”

The city has seen an uptick in migrants from Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua and various African countries, and has also received “an unusually large numbers of migrants who have been compelled to leave Texas by bus transport,” Lightfoot wrote. Chicago has 1,531 migrants in its care, she wrote, and is running 11 alternate shelters that provide meals, clothing and showers.

Lightfoot said the $53.5 million she is seeking is what the city projects it will have to spend through June 30 for “migrant services, and this amount will only increase based on the number of new migrants that arrive in Chicago.”

She said the city has made its own “multimillion-dollar investment” in help for migrants; “however, these funds without state assistance will not be nearly sufficient to address this ongoing need.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, has been sending busloads of migrants who crossed the border into Texas to sanctuary cities including Washington, D.C., New York City and Chicago as part of a pushback against federal immigration policies and to relieve what he says are overburdened border towns in his state. The move has been criticized by mayors, including Lightfoot, who has called it a “racist” and “inhumane” publicity stunt.

A letter to city officials signed by Alicia Tate-Nadeau, the director of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, and Grace Hou, secretary of the Illinois Department of Human Services, said the state has spent more than $120 million and helped provide shelter and services to 3,700 people. But the state agencies “have exhausted all available fiscal resources for the operation of the asylum seeker mission,” said the letter, obtained by the Tribune.