Chicago migrant encampment cleared; city officials deny it’s because of DNC

CHICAGO — Jordan Parra said he didn’t walk across seven countries to be kicked out of his tent in a park in Chicago.

The 27-year-old from Caracas, Venezuela, had been staying on Chicago Housing Authority land adjacent to the Near West District (12th) police station with his partner for months. They opted to sleep outside after feeling unsafe in three different city-run shelters, he said. Then in late June, he said, police officers came into the park with a bulldozer and cleared everyone out.

“What we’ve found here is worse than in Venezuela, because we came here with hope for a better life and had to deal with the disappointment of not even getting close,” he said.

Parra showed the Tribune a video he took on his phone of a hostile interaction with Chicago police officers as he and a half-dozen others were forcibly removed from the site.

“They didn’t let us take out our bags. There were suitcases inside, there were personal things, and the police didn’t let us take them,” Parra said.

The encampment clearing was the latest of the city’s overall “encampment initiative” at eight tent cities across Chicago, according to Chicago Department of Family and Support Services spokesman Brian Berg.

The empty CHA lot by the police station had become a crowded encampment for migrants, like Parra, who opted not to stay in shelters for safety concerns and other reasons.

The city has received close to 46,000 migrants on buses in about two years, sent by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in an attempt to challenge liberal cities’ welcoming messages.

Most come fleeing violence or poverty in Venezuela, which has seen unrest for days following the announced victory of an authoritarian leader in the presidential election earlier this week. Several countries have called the results of that election into question, including the United States, which on Thursday recognized opposition candidate Edmundo González as the winner over President Nicolás Maduro.

The encampment clearings haven’t affected asylum-seekers — as most have temporary housing in 17 shelters run by the city and state. But the removal of tents CHA land on the Near West Side did affect migrants, who said they were not told by police officers why they were being moved.

When a major homeless encampment by the Dan Ryan Expressway was cleared on July 17, Maura McCauley, managing deputy commissioner of the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services, told the Tribune it was fast-tracked in time for the Democratic National Convention in late August. She said there were worries that security officials with the convention could suddenly ask that the tent city be evacuated.

Johnson later denied his administration’s earlier statements attributing the action to the DNC, scheduled for Aug. 19-22. The removal of the site by the Near West District station had nothing to do with the convention, Berg said.

Immigration has been a contentious issue for Democrats leading up to the convention, where the party is set to coalesce around Vice President Kamala Harris, after President Joe Biden stepped down as the nominee in late July. Some city officials estimate that thousands of migrants could be bused up to the city for the convention to wreak havoc, as a visual counterpoint to liberal policies that led to unprecedented border crossings over the fall and winter.

The estimate comes as border crossings have decreased significantly following an executive order issued by Biden in early June. But immigration experts say the border closure doesn’t affect the root causes of migration, and that more people will continue to make their way to the United States in the next few years at record numbers.

City officials denied any other efforts to clear the city of migrants ahead of the DNC.

Migrants staying at two shelters near the United Center — the site of the prime-time speeches and events of the convention — told the Tribune they had been given exit dates to leave before the first day of the convention, though city officials said they had no plans to close shelters before the DNC.

And migrants staying at a shelter in the Loop downtown said a few weeks ago that officials put up a fence in the square of Pritzker Park, where dozens of shelter residents typically gathered daily to sell cigarettes or stand in a pack. The city said it was not involved in putting up that fence.

About 16 unhoused people identified by the city were cleared from the vacant land by the police station on the West Side, according to CHA spokesperson Matthew Aguilar. Seven people moved voluntarily to shelters, and most of the rest moved their belongings to a smaller CHA lot a few blocks west. A chain-link fence was put up around the first lot.

Aguilar said city officials had been conducting weekly outreach at the site since April 1, and that 27 people had already been “relocated.” Outreach teams provided more than seven days’ notice before the closure, he said, and followed “encampment cleaning protocol.”

“The relocation allowed individuals to better access supportive services and future housing opportunities,” he said.

Ahead of a plan to combine the city and state’s migrant shelter system with the legacy homeless system, advocates for unhoused populations are already discussing how the two groups may overlap in the coming years.

Many migrants don’t have a job and can’t afford rent, making them more at risk for homelessness, said Oscar Martinez, director of impact for Street Samaritans, a nonprofit that helps unhoused people in Chicago.

Martinez, a native Spanish speaker, said there aren’t enough bilingual resources among homeless outreach groups to respond to people begging on the street. That will have to change in the next few years as more migrants come to Chicago, he said.

“We’re shifting from ‘crisis response’ to ‘this is our city now.’ We are going to be expecting migrants consistently,” he said.

On a recent morning, Parra and his partner got out of their tent at small park where they are staying nearby and poured some water into a bowl for their cat, Tussi, who they keep tied up to a scratching post so he won’t kill birds, they said.

Parra said he has been in the U.S. for almost a year and fled his home country to escape political violence. He has had to move four times since arriving in Chicago — three times at shelters and again from one CHA lot to another.

Luis Linares, a 24-year-old from the Yaracuy state in Venezuela, also sleeps in the cluster of tents on CHA property. He said that whenever he gets work, he wires money home to his family in Venezuela, who need it more than he does.

He said he doesn’t feel safe in the shelter, so prefers to sleep in a tent. He can’t afford rent for an apartment.

The men at the encampment said they use the McDonald’s bathroom nearby to shower. At night, they sit on folding chairs in a circle. They say they’re tired.

“We want to leave here,” Linares said. “We’re trying to make enough money to save up.”