After days of delays, city moves migrant families from North Side to Daley College

Erin Armstrong spent Tuesday morning passing out t-shirts that resembled the Chicago flag outside of the High Ridge YMCA.

“We’ve worked very closely with these kids, it’s heartbreaking that they’re being moved,” said Armstrong, a preschool teacher with Philip Rogers Fine Arts Elementary School. “They’ve really gotten comfortable here and are just a part of the family. They felt very comfortable at school and we were excited to get ready for the summer and the fall with them.”

Armstrong and other teachers at the school have grown close to a group of immigrant students who had been staying at the YMCA at 2424 W. Touhy Ave. — until Tuesday afternoon, when three busloads of families left the facility and headed south to Daley College, at 76th and Pulaski in West Lawn.

Some plan to make the lengthy commute down to Daley College, to teach summer school, Armstrong said.

“We’re really going to miss them. We’ve welcomed them with open arms here and they were really at home with us,” said Armstrong.

The buses left the YMCA just after 2:30 p.m. for the nearly 25-mile trip to Daley College.

Rich Guidice, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s chief of staff, said families with children needed to moved to Daley College to free the High Ridge YMCA to be used exclusively for single men who now dominate the 500-strong population still sleeping on the floors of Chicago police stations.

“We prefer to keep families separated from single men and keep the families intact for safety and security,” Guidice said.

Jason Lee, a senior adviser to the mayor, characterized separating families from single men as a “precaution.”

“For children and families, you just want to have some containment there so you can have better management and less risk. The last thing we can afford is to put anybody at risk because you have different people who shouldn’t be co-mingling,” he said.

Daley College already has been housing other migrant families.

After some pushback, the move from the YMCA was delayed from last Friday to Sunday. Then, on Sunday, it was delayed again until Tuesday, “to provide more time for planning,” according to a statement issued by the office of Mayor Brandon Johnson.

But Tuesday, the move finally occurred — and it wasn’t just teachers who were upset.

Joann, who asked that her full name not be published, became close to a family of new arrivals in April after she saw them living on the floor of a police station. That family moved into the YMCA, and were starting to put down roots in the neighborhood, landing a job in Rogers Park.

Being forced to move “kicks the chair from underneath them,” Joann said. They still hope to commute to work at their new jobs from Daley College, but “that’s not pretty, especially without a car.”

Ald. Jeylu Gutierrez (14th), whose ward includes Daley College, said her Southwest Side constituents were prepared to welcome the families with children with open arms.

“I know the mayor’s office and the departments — they’ve been working tirelessly to get a good place for these families. Unfortunately, we don’t have any other spaces available at the moment,” the rookie alderperson said.

The migrant crisis has generated local resistance in several communities where respite centers have been opened in shuttered schools and Chicago Park District facilities. In some places, it has exacerbated historic political tensions between African Americans and Latinos that were on display during the contentious meeting when a divided City Council approved $51 million in emergency funding for the migrant crisis — enough to carry the city only through June 30.

But, Gutierrez said Tuesday she anticipates no such resistance in her majority Latino-ward.

“We’re not racists in the 14th Ward. A lot of our hard-working people who are immigrants themselves understand the struggles since we all got here for different reasons and we struggled at the beginning,” Gutierrez said.

Ald. Debra Silverstein (50th) represents the Far North Side ward that includes the YMCA.

“My community has opened their arms and their hearts to whoever is living there,” Silverstein said.

“I know this is very difficult for the families. I definitely hear that. But in speaking with the mayor’s office, they’ve really been concerned about them, but feel that they…need to move them to the Daley location.”

Across the street from Daley College, a group of newly arrived migrants — including small children — stood outside an abandoned storefront trying to attract the attention of motorists zooming by Pulaski Road. Three of the men, who asked not to be publicly identified, said they’ve spent about a week living at the makeshift shelter inside Daley College.

They were told they could live there only 30 days, which is why they spent all morning seeking the attention of motorists who might help them get jobs. But offers have been rare, the men said. Good Samaritans have brought them meals, clothes and diapers for the children, they said.

The men are seeking asylum, and would like to learn everything about living in the U.S. — including how to pay taxes.

“Many of us don’t have bad intentions. ... We want to construct and generate income to send to our countries, to give our children a worthy education,” one of the men said in Spanish. “We hope that this country extends a helping hand and sees that we are hardworking fathers whose work varies from laborers to engineers to lawyers.”

Elvia Malagón’s reporting on social justice and income inequality is made possible by a grant from The Chicago Community Trust.