Last week I had the opportunity to travel with representatives from the City of Chicago and the State of Illinois to the Texas-Mexico border. I was honored to be asked to accompany this delegation as the only representative of Chicago’s legal services and non-profit organizations.
The Texas border was new to me. But the horrific stories we heard in Reynosa, Matamoros, Ciudad Juarez, Laredo and the tactics of Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) were sadly familiar.
Communities have inhabited the areas near where the line was drawn between the U.S. and Mexico for generations and are no strangers to migration. Immigration authorities, non-profit and religious organizations touted how, with the assistance of millions of U.S. federal dollars, they could efficiently process hundreds of migrants a day: “after all, it is el paso.” About 80-99% of people move on from the border cities.
It is here we have two main differences between the border and Chicago: people are coming to stay and our city has received very limited federal funding to help receive them. We were in Texas to learn from their communities’ operations, but also reflect on how we can better respond to support migrants who decide to stay in our city.
Here are few of my takeaways:
- Chicago is not only a welcoming city for migrants, but a place where people hope to resettle and build lives with dignity and security. This means more than providing temporary shelter; it encompasses wraparound services such as education, health care, and legal services so that people can obtain long-term stability and independence. Members of our delegation had tough conversations about what we can do to help our new neighbors integrate into our city. Like our colleagues near the border, we need federal funding to support these efforts.
- We cannot have these conversations without confronting Chicago’s history of divestment in certain communities, a history that often has been rooted in racism. As we build infrastructure to support new neighbors, we have an opportunity to build inclusive systems that also support people and families who have called Chicago home for generations.
- The federal immigration system is severely backlogged and this impediment to justice looms over our efforts to scale legal services. Even when newcomers “get in line” to apply for legal status, it can take years to get any documentation. The federal government needs to provide fair access and processing for legal stability. We saw it can be done when people fleeing war in Ukraine were quickly provided a fair and fast process to integrate. We need the federal government to provide efficient immigration processing for all people who come seeking safety from violence and persecution.
Overall, we are facing humanitarian issues that require hard conversations and quick action. I am proud to be a Chicagoan and welcome our new neighbors.
Ellen Miller is NIJC's pro bono manager.