Since August 2022, Texas Governor Greg Abbot has been transporting migrants from the southern border to six US sanctuary cities – all with Democratic leadership – as a political statement against the Biden Administration’s immigration policies. Between August 2022 and November 2023, 23,000 migrants arrived in Chicago, igniting a crisis concerning how to properly support and house them. A major contributor to this crisis is the migrants’ inability to financially support themselves for months due to delays in work authorizations; however, federal policy change could alleviate the crisis by expediting the process.

To help Chicago deal with its crisis, Illinois Governor Pritzker has asked President Biden to
provide more support. In his request, Pritzker suggested temporary protected status application
waivers and shortened work permit wait times. With the recent adoption of 60-day shelter stay limits by the city, the decreased wait times could be a major benefit. If the federal government does not step in – in this case, by speeding up the work authorization process – then Chicago will continue to struggle to house thousands of new arrivals who have no other legal option but to hope their work permit arrives soon.

The crisis continues even as the cold winter weather descends upon the city. Nearly 13,000 migrants are being housed in 25 temporary shelters; earlier, some some 1,200 had been sleeping on police station -– or airport – floors. The Chicago city government has attempted to create reasonable accommodations and provide support for the new arrivals, but the ongoing wave of migrants has pushed their resources to the limit. The City of Chicago, led by Mayor Brandon Johnson, is struggling to find housing to accommodate the thousands of migrants awaiting placement, with the construction of sizable tent camps being a major element of the city’s planned response.

The migrants are not only in dire need of support but are also limited in the extent they can help themselves. Many of the newcomers lack those work authorizations, so as they endure the lengthy processes for their asylum claims to be settled, they remain dependent on the city and volunteers. On average, the acquisition of work authorizations takes about six months from the initial request. The delay has led to some migrants working under-the-table jobs in sectors like construction, painting, or cleaning, leaving them exposed to unsafe or exploitative conditions: they might feel they have little recourse, for instance, if their wages are not paid in full. Another danger with working these informal jobs, especially if the migrants resort to false documentation to certify eligibility, is that it could potentially affect their asylum applications. Even without such legal problems, the unreliable earnings from informal jobs also mean that migrants cannot easily rent apartments or otherwise establish stable accommodations.

For migrants residing in city shelters, the situation became even more precarious in November 2023, when Chicago announced the 60-day limit to shelter stays. (The implementation of this plan has been twice delayed, and is now scheduled to go into effect on February 1, 2024.) For most of the shelter residents, work authorizations will not arrive before the evictions from shelters begin, and possibly the authorizations will take many months further. The need to pursue informal employment will become more acute, even as illegal work could endanger their asylum cases. The crisis will not be resolved anytime soon if migrants do not have a legal path to self-support.

Humanity is not the only spur to speeding up work authorizations. The labor market in the US and in Chicago is extremely tight by historical standards: some industries are desperate for workers. The hotel industry has 1,800 jobs available throughout Chicago – jobs hotels hope to fill once more migrants become eligible for legal employment. Some business owners have even distributed their phone numbers to migrants, so the migrants can reach them when their work permits come through. Policy change to shorten the work authorization waiting period could alleviate the rolling migrant crisis as well as the labor shortage. Without any federal policy change
soon, especially following the implementation of the shelter time limits, migrants in Chicago will be left to fend for themselves, with the potential for mass homelessness in the face of a legal barrier to paid employment – even as viable job openings abound.