Three Chicago City aldermen visiting El Paso, Texas, said Wednesday that they want a federal disaster declaration for the federal government to provide more help for their city to deal with the influx of illegal migrants.
"We've done everything we could, and now it's time for the federal government to declare Chicago a federal disaster zone, with that comes millions of dollars that will be used to house, used to provide wrap-around services and not-for-profits can step in and work beside the city," 6th Ward Alderman Will Hall told Chicago ABC 7 while visiting the border city Wednesday.
According to the news outlet, there are currently 11,000 migrants housed in city shelters and another 3,600 on a waiting list.
The officials will head to San Antonio on Friday where two daily flights transport migrants to their city, the report said.
The visit comes as El Paso is seeing a drop in daily border encounters and use of shelters, thanks in part to policy changes and the help of Mexican law enforcement checkpoints, El Paso television station KFOX 14 reported Wednesday.
According to the news outlet, the number of daily Customs and Border Protection encounters has dropped during October from 620 a day now compared with 1,162 daily earlier in the month.
Out of the 8,795 illegal migrants received by the border city since Sept. 10, 7,781 were chartered out to Chicago, Denver, and New York.
"We do have a large number of individuals as well as families that have the desire to go that direction along with New York and Denver, those seem to be the top three at this point," John Martin, the Deputy Director for the Opportunity Center for the Homeless in El Paso, told the station. "[The Chicago leaders' visit] opens up that dialogue, it gives us the opportunity to understand them a little bit better and looking outside of the media."
Martin said that communicating with officials in the cities that the migrants head to gives everyone a better picture of the issue.
"Then we know a little bit better of what [migrants] can expect and we can relay that information to [migrants] now if that dismays them from traveling to that direction, that's truly their choice," Martin said in the report.
El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser's office said in a statement that he welcomed the Chicago delegation.
"Today, Mayor Leeser and members of the city team were pleased to host a delegation from Illinois visiting El Paso," the statement to the station said. "Mayor Leeser and Mayor Johnson of Chicago have spoken, but he did not travel to El Paso. We will continue conversations with Mayor Johnson and his team to ensure a coordinated and collaborative response among our cities to the humanitarian crisis we are facing."
Charles Kim ✉
Charles Kim, a Newsmax general assignment writer, is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years in reporting on news and politics.
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