Natalia Chi
Mayor Lori Lightfoot is pictured in a file photo from Aug. 10, 2022. (WTTW News)
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and New York City Mayor Eric Adams sent a joint letter to the Colorado governor urging his administration to stop busing migrants by bus in their respective cities.
Lightfoot and Adams are asking Colorado Gov. Jared Polis to instead partner with Chicago and New York to advocate for federal solutions to the nation’s ongoing challenges surrounding asylum seekers, according to a press release from Lightfoot’s office.
“While we share concerns about accommodating the surge in asylum seekers, overburdening other cities is not the solution,” Lightfoot and Adams wrote. “We respectfully request that you cease and desist sending migrants to New York City and Chicago. Since December of 2022, Chicago and New York City have received hundreds of people from Colorado. Before the first bus arrived in one of our cities, we directly notified a Colorado official that neither city had additional space to accommodate more migrants due to the thousands of migrants who had already been bused to our respective cities since Texas as of Spring 2022.”
Since 31 August 2022 there have been a total of 3,854 immigrants bus to Chicago from Texas, with another 1,400 immigrants from other states, officials said. Since then, the city has set up 11 emergency shelters.
Lightfoot has asked state officials to send $54 million in emergency funds to the city to care for the immigrants.
The release did not state how many people were bused to Chicago from Colorado. Earlier in the week, Chicago officials declined to tell WTTW News how many people were bused in from Colorado.
