The migrants who are pawns in the politics of US immigration

The writer is a contributing columnist, based in Chicago

Luis, 28, and his wife, Maria, 26, squat among the patchwork of air mattresses, sleeping bags and blankets that they call home, in a disused part of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. Nearby, a young friend slurps instant noodles from a bowl, his Christmas Eve dinner. Another pulls a knitted cap low over his brow and plays on a cell phone.

For months, these Latin American migrants have been sleeping, eating and trying to build their own American dream on this bit of linoleum, which they currently share with 245 others; they are pawns in a battle that has upended the politics of immigration in the US, at the start of a critical presidential election year.

Luis and Maria (names changed to protect them) are among nearly 30,000 migrants transported by Texas Republicans to the Democratic city of Chicago since August 2022 in a protest over lack of enforcement of the Mexican border. What began as a political stunt by Texas governor Greg Abbott to call the bluff of “sanctuary city” northern Democrats has almost overwhelmed cities such as New York and Chicago.

Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, has warned the influx could “destroy” his city. He and Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson have appealed for urgent federal help to deal with the crisis. At one point last autumn, Chicago had more than 3,000 migrants living inside and outside police stations because shelters were full. Johnson wanted to build a tent city for them, but had to abandon the plan after an environmental study showed toxic chemicals in the soil.

With budgets under strain, and long-term residents complaining that migrants are being prioritised for funds over them, Chicago imposed stricter rules on bus operators to try to staunch the flow of people. But Abbott simply diverted buses to the suburbs. Suburban Chicago governments passed ordinances to push back, but Texas was also chartering planes. Abbott has declared victory, saying Democrats such as Johnson “should be embarrassed because it is utter hypocrisy . . . They say, ‘Oh, bring us your migrants’ . . . We sent them migrants and now they’re complaining about it.”

Luis is caught in the middle — but he’s not complaining. It took him two months to travel, mostly by foot and bus, from his Venezuela home through the treacherous Darién Gap jungle, to Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala and across the Mexican border into Texas — where he was detained and then shipped north via Florida.

At O’Hare, he tells me, “there is food, we don’t have to pay rent”. He says his biggest problem is getting a work permit. Because of the political and economic turmoil in their country, Venezuelans can apply for expedited work permits if they arrived in the US before July 31. He did not. There is also a longer path to working papers, but only if Venezuelans apply for humanitarian parole before entering the US, says Eréndira Rendón, vice-president of immigrant justice at The Resurrection Project, a Chicago community group that helps migrants get work permits. Luis did not.

Instead he is working illegally for a delivery company that pays him only $80 for a 12-hour day, and trying to get a lawyer to take his case. He’s not alone, says Nan Warshaw, founder and president of Refugee Community Connection, a volunteer group that helps new Chicago migrants. She says about two-thirds of her clients without permits are working.

“A lot will end up in the general undocumented community,” says Rendon. With that in prospect, does Luis wish he’d never come? He shrugs, gesturing at the dentures he wears to replace the teeth that he says were knocked out by Venezuelan police: “I can’t go back.”

Warshaw says many of her clients feel the same: “Life is harder here than they expected but easier than where they came from . . . I think most will settle here and many will thrive, and things will be much easier for the second generation.” She adds: “It’s that old immigrant story.”

Maybe that’s true, but it’s a strange way to run an immigration policy: and with the presidential election kicking into high gear, things could well get stranger before they get better.