From Freezing Cold to Housing Insecurity, Migrants Face Crisis in NYC, Chicago & Beyond

As nine Democratic governors join together to call on President Biden and Congress to address the humanitarian crisis faced by migrants, we look at conditions faced by tens of thousands of asylum seekers in New York City and Chicago. Many arrived over the last year on buses from Texas as part of Republican Governor Greg Abbott’s anti-immigrant efforts. We hear from a migrant staying in a tent shelter at a former airport site in New York City where they face below-freezing temperatures and a lack of medical services, and we speak with immigration rights activists. Murad Awawdeh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, and Oscar Chacón, executive director of Alianza Americas, discuss how immigrants have been treated as scapegoats by leaders who have failed to provide services and reform the immigration system. “Migrants are simply making these failures in our society very visible,” says Chacón.