When I walk through the Chicago Women’s Park and Gardens, I always pass by a sculpture called Helping Hands by artist Louise Bourgeois. The sculpture’s granite plinths and carved hands pay homage to Jane Addams, who founded the Hull-House social settlement on Chicago’s Near West Side in 1889.
The work calls to mind Addams’ effort to welcome immigrants and build participatory democracy at the local level. But it also gestures toward one of Chicago’s deep contradictions: a city famously welcoming to migrants, yet also famously unequal and divided.
These contradictions have been put on full display amid an unprecedented influx of asylum-seekers arriving in the city. In the past few weeks, Chicago has seen a tenfold increase in the number of asylum-seekers, mainly from Central and South America. Since August, when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott began sending buses with asylum-seekers to sanctuary cities across the U.S. as a form of protest against federal immigration policies, Chicago has received nearly 10,000 migrants.
Have Chicago’s helping hands stretched toward these migrants? Or has the city taken on a more closed, even defensive posture? The answer is both. Yet confronting this conflicting stance can bring fresh policy solutions.
As a sanctuary city, Chicago has committed itself to creating a welcoming and safe environment for all migrants regardless of their immigration status. In practical terms, this means providing shelter, food and, crucially, health care to migrants seeking asylum when they first arrive. The difficulties of doing this on a large scale, however, have become apparent.
Chicago has quickly reached capacity for shelter beds for the thousands of asylum-seekers now in the city. And the city has scrambled not only to find more places to use as shelters, with police station lobbies used as temporary housing, but also to provide clothing, food, health care and education for migrant children.
In South Shore, some residents have opposed a plan to shelter migrants in a former high school, out of frustration with a perceived prioritizing of migrants’ needs over those of local communities. Protests have also erupted among Far Northwest Side residents against a plan to house migrants at Wilbur Wright College.
Two imperatives are clear. Funding is urgently needed from the state and federal governments to maintain adequate housing and health care provision for asylum-seekers, thus avoiding a humanitarian emergency. But in addition, proactive measures must be taken to allow asylum-seekers to live, not just wait, and to allay social tensions that may arise from a perceived competition for resources.
Mayor Brandon Johnson should join New York City Mayor Eric Adams and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul in calling on the federal government to expedite work authorization for asylum-seekers. After filing for asylum, migrants need to wait 150 days to obtain work eligibility.
During this time, asylum-seekers cannot fully participate in the life of their new communities, and their “suspended” lives can lead to a growing precarity and disconnectedness. Many asylum cases will take years to be adjudicated. Prolonged waiting creates its own additional harm, on top of the harms frequently experienced on long journeys to and across the border.
Asylum-seekers face similar precarity to many long-standing residents of Chicago, for whom hardship stems from poverty, violence, discrimination and the lasting effects of the pandemic. At the same time, these residents’ foundational instability — in terms of housing, finance, employment or education — mirrors that of asylum-seekers. If recognized as shared, these experiences can lead to a collective call for change.
For this reason, the city administration must strive to promote solidarity between migrant communities and local host communities. Alliances should be forged, and cooperation should be supported among civic and community leaders working on the ground with both migrant and marginalized communities.
Just as important, asylum-seekers should have the opportunity to represent themselves and tell their own stories. These stories can shed light on the reasons behind their decisions to flee their country and resonate with Chicagoans who have been affected by poverty, violence or exclusion. They can reveal a desire and a demand for dignity and justice for all.
If, as Johnson said, “the stronger our communities are, the better positioned we can be to support those who are struggling,” then the presence of asylum-seekers in Chicago can offer the administration an opportunity to take stock of the needs of all the residents of Chicago — migrants and nonmigrants alike — and take action. The joint announcement of the new roles of deputy mayors for immigrant, migrant and refugee rights; community safety; and labor relations is a promising start.
Chicago’s helping hands must keep stretching open. And hold strong.
Valeria Castelli is a research associate for the Chicago Council on Global Affairs’ Center on Global Cities. She studies city-to-city diplomacy, Chicago’s global engagement, urbanism and democracy, and equitable climate action.
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