- Welcome to "N'Digo Studio."

I'm Hermene Hartman.

And today we are going to talk about migrants.

We're going to talk about migrants with citizens, citizens who are affected - For them to just sit up here With this crap!

And we suppose to listen to it?

Are tax bills are paid into the park district.

Nobody asked for permission!

As of October, 17,000 migrants officially have arrived in Chicago, and we expect 25 daily buses a day to arrive.

And they're going all across the city, police stations, at the airport, and any place they can find.

Joining us today are two experts, experts on human development.

Dr. Carol Adams.

She is a retired professor of sociology, and she taught African American history.

Also, she is the Secretary of Human Services for the state of Illinois, and Wanda Wright.

Well, she is an activist and a community and civic engagement specialist in the city of Chicago.

That's For Real... Funding for this program was provided by Illinois Student Assistance Commission The Chicago Community Trust.

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(upbeat music) - But really all over the city with your civic engagement.

- Correct.

- Okay, so we've got a problem.

And the problem is the migrants, too many, too much, police stations, budget, not provided for, what do we do with the migrants?

- Wow, that's a tall question.

I think we have to break it down into sizable bites, and the first of it being planning, and the kind of advanced planning that engages communities.

I think that one of the problems that we've had recently is bringing on the community at the last minute.

is bringing on the community at the last minute.

and you've not had a chance to be involved in it at all, to be engaged in the planning.

Your elected officials not had an opportunity to weigh in, whether they're city, county, federal, or state.

And there's just been no real creation of a mutual vision of what that is like.

I think that a lot of the pushback we're getting is not because people don't want to be helpful, not because people are not humanitarian at heart, but because they object to the way things are being done.

- So, we could do much better in planning?

- We should plan, and we should have what's called cross stakeholder engagement, where every segment of people who have something to do with it are at that table, negotiating and discussing what ought to happen.

- That's real community development.

- That's real community work.

- Wanda, what do you think?

- We've never had cross community involvement.

We're always handed, especially minority communities.

Now the north side's a little different, but the west side and the south side are served whatever's on the table.

Much like slavery, we get the crumbs of information, we get the tail end of the story, and we're told to swallow the circumstances and just deal with it.

- So, what do you ladies think about the idea that Mayor Johnson has talked about with tents in all 77 communities in Chicago in the wintertime?

What do we do with the tents?

How about that, as a solution?

- I think we walk back from the tents, and I believe that there might be such a walk back in process.

I think in Chicago, I don't care how they winterize the tents, the optics of tents in the city like this that has a polar vortex kinda often is not the best.

I think also the image of cot upon cot upon cot is not the humane way for which we want to be known in terms of how we treated citizens that came here, or non-citizens that came here seeking to become citizens.

I think we left a pretty good example at the state of Illinois when we welcomed the people who came here from Katrina, in terms of how it should be done, whereas other cities across the country have folks in gyms on cots, we had them in beds, in rooms with bathrooms, and we had them all over the state.

So, I really am definitely a proponent for the state getting engaged in this and not leaving all this to Chicago to try to deal with alone.

Because we were able to work in the neighborhoods, in the communities, excuse me, across the state.

And people actually worked and planned for the folk that were gonna come to their town, and they welcomed them because people genuinely wanna help other people.

But they do not wanna be imposed on, they do not want you to stop what they're doing, so that somebody else can do something.

They don't wanna close down your parks and your recreation centers and your afterschool programs and all the things that your neighborhood relies on and that your children rely on in order to accommodate this crisis.

They want to be able to do them both, and they should be able to do them both.

So it's kind of like, what some of the, some of the kickback is that we pay the, the taxes and it's our children going to the park district, and it's our seniors going to the park district to, engage in activity.

And then those activities stop to accommodate the migrants.

Wanda, where would you put the migrants?

We've have fifty schools that closed, We've got churches that are closed, so we don't have to put migrants in tents.

That's a absolute last resort.

- That's true, but we do have, we have units of open housing that we're not capitalizing on all over the city.

There's been no plan to house them inside.

They in the police station, they have to use those restrooms to refresh themselves and their babies and their children.

We have covid warnings, again.

They're not dumping- bringing people here and just basically dumping, and I'm gonna say dumping them on the street to survive is inhumane.

- It is inhumane.

What do you think about Alderman Bill's idea of going to the ballot for voters to vote as whether Chicago should remain a sanctuary city?

- Alderman Bill is my Alderman and I'm totally- - You like that?

- In support of him.

Yes, because, everything that has been done in Roseland as far as being progressive, okay?

Has been through Bill's insistence to push it through and formalize it.

There's room to build, there's room to grow, but you can't just come in and throw up a tent.

You already have people in that police station, the fifth district, walking through the neighborhood and residents are up in arms about it.

- Well, I wanna go back a little bit to what you talked about the use of available buildings or properties.

- Mm-hmm.

- Because again, if I use the example about Katrina, what we did was we went and reopened all those closed down mental health and rehab facilities, and then they had rooms and they had bathrooms and they had cafeterias and they had spaces.

And yes, they needed some sprucing up, and by now they may need even more than that, but it doesn't take as long as it takes for us to negotiate these contracts and build these tents and all the rest of this.

And you then leave a restored property behind that can be used by a neighborhood.

So you've got all kinds of churches, as Wanda mentioned, that have been closed.

You've got schools that have been closed, they're in various conditions.

You choose the ones that are in the best shape, and you work on them and you work on them along with the community.

So, the community then inherits a reconstituted asset that can be used for the things that we need.

You don't take an under-resourced community, and try to just drain the last breath out of it by creating an antagonistic situation where one could be created that's much more humanitarian, that's much more loving, that's much more extensive.

Churches and all these people wanna help out, but they are not being resourced in a way that enables them to do so.

- How many from Katrina, how many people did we accommodate?

- We prepared for 10,000 people.

We got a little less than that, because of the politics of them rather to send them to Texas to be on a cot in a gym than to send 'em to us, 'cause it was just like there's politics in this, There was politics in that for how things are gonna look.

And that's why we have to be very careful about the optics and how we treat people and how we handle things.

On the eve of the Democratic National Convention and all these other things, what we do here is going to be of major importance.

(soft music) in the way we are presently structuring the migrants?

Are we creating a crime, chaotic situation?

- We are.

- I've heard doctors say we are creating a public health- - We are.

- Situation.

Speak to that, Wanda.

- So the Cook County, one of the Cook County physicians came to a community meeting in Austin, and while everybody was making their contributions to the conversation, she announced, "You understand that they're not vaccinated when they come in."

- Not vaccinated to go to school?

- Well, not vaccinated to go to school.

And that's the other point.

But they were carrying measles, and you cannot have someone who has measles come in to your home and take a shower.

- It's contagious.

- It becomes a contagious environment.

So, they're not warning us about that.

Their dental hygiene was terrible.

They couldn't- if they went to the emergency room, they had to invoke the law.

You know there's a law that you can get service, but you're contaminating the space with other people.

There needs to be a separate intake process.

- Well, the intake process itself has to really be reexamined.

- [Wanda] It does, yes.

- Okay, and public health is major, major, major here.

We are- covid is now over.

- [Hermene] That's right.

- You know, contrary to what people think.

- It did not go away.

- Okay, it did not go away.

New strains, it gets more intelligent every week it seems like.

And so we have to prepare in that way, for them and for us, for people moving in and out of the police stations and everywhere else.

Folk need to be protected.

And we're not protecting ourselves, and we're not protecting anyone else either.

- What about the budget?

We see money just being dispensed in large numbers.

We have a deficit.

We will have a deficit in the city of Chicago.

And with that, there's only one thing to do.

And we're looking at some taxes going up and some services going down.

Who's responsible?

Is it the federal government?

Is it the state government?

Is this a city government?

Mayor Eric Adams says, "You're going to destroy New York.

Because the money is gone, the resources are gone.

I don't have anymore."

And he took to the borders to say to the Venezuelans, "Don't come.

The American dream is not here.

I can't accommodate you."

What do you think about that?

- Well, I believe that we have to understand that this is a work in progress.

Not just an ending.

And what we say, we say for all time, I believe we have to consider temporarily suspending the status of Chicago as a sanctuary city, so that we can get a hold of what we've got now.

And so we can come up with a process by which to do things.

You can't just keep receiving and expect to be able to give any level of quality to the service that you're doing.

I've never seen any country anywhere in the world do this, do what we are being asked to do.

And there's no breathing room to get it right, you know?

So I believe that there's not a single element of our government that isn't involved in this.

And certainly they can afford to give more money to the states and cities from the federal government.

You know, again, I'd like to see the state much more actively engaged in this.

You've got communities that need residents really badly.

I believe that we're gonna have to look They've been places that have been receiving refugees and immigrants for years in this state.

And you don't even know it, okay.

And they need to be welcomed in those communities in a way that they would be, since some resources be offered to them.

I believe that we're going to have to look at that at that county budget.

Excuse me, president, correct me, 'cause I know you got some- - With your surplus.

- Yeah, I know you got some plans, but the public health aspect of this might be something that they might be willing to take on somewhat in terms of the planning, the intake that you talk about.

All those other things that need to happen.

- So, our governor, Governor Pritzker did write a very firm sound letter to the President to say, "You've got to give us more money."

He also said, "I do not agree with the tents."

He said that kinda loud and clear.

- Did he offer up any spaces that are available throughout the state that's to help take some of this pressure off the city of Chicago to help to be able to occupy some spaces that are available across our state, so that we can represent a little differently.

- So, a city has to offer to be a sanctuary space.

It's part of the problem with Chicago.

You know, I offered the idea that we had these empty supermax prison in downstate.

Take the bars down, and turn it into a residential area where their cafeteria is set up, showers set up, they know how to disinfect the facility.

Sprinklers, all the safety hazards, heat, until you can figure out how you want to bring them in.

These migrants that are coming in here are very skilled.

- They're electricians, carpenters- - There are cities that will offer, cities would offer, again if they're properly resourced, because- - Well, that's true.

- If you look at it, look at all the cities in the state of Illinois.

They begged for prisons.

Why did they beg for prisons?

Not because they wanted prisoners to be their neighbors.

They wanted those jobs.

- That's right.

- They wanted those contracts.

- That's right.

- They wanted what it was gonna do for their economy.

- That's right.

- And this can be very good for their economies as well.

You know, again, properly put together, there's win-win here.

Our communities are saying don't ignore our homeless, don't ignore our people who need help for the sake of somebody else.

And then half do that.

Not even do that well.

And have the nerve to ignore us in the planning process.

- And let's mention the language barrier too.

- That's a problem too, isn't it?

- Yes.

- So, what would the faith-based leaders do?

What should the church do?

What should the ministers do?

- You mean, what should the Catholic church do?

- I mean, all churches, the Catholic church has a lot of vacant land.

- Space.

- They've got some property, - They've got all these churches that, that have come together because there was space, you know, it's often they also have a school associated or the residences that existed for nuns and priests.

- Correct, correct.

- So, there's space available.

I think it's about, I don't know, I'm sure someone's taking a look at this.

I just don't know who it is, that's inventorying what's available.

That's taking a look at it and seeing what is easily stand-up-able.

Because some of these places just closed a year ago.

So it's not that everything has 50 been closed, for 10 years and 15 years, and it would take too long.

- [Hermene] They're not dilapidated.

- You know, I mentioned Tinley.

Tinley is no longer available.

The state sold Tinley Park for a dollar, and gave the people $15 million to fix it up after they sold it for the dollar.

So, you know, we are bargain selling our assets when we could be repurposing them.

- We could, we could.

- That's a great point.

- Why do you think the migrants are being placed in urban cities that are, that have black mayors?

We see New York, we see Chicago.

Is this a political plot?

Is this to- - Look at who's doing the dropping off.

Look who's doing the dropping off.

How do they get a chance to just do that?

Just to say, hey, we're dropping them off all at your doorstep.

We don't have anything to do with it.

We're gonna place this with you and hope that you fail, and we're gonna do everything we can to make sure you do.

So, obviously there's a dastardly plot at work.

But didn't Daley offer that at some point, for open the door to Chicago being a sanctuary, city at some point?

- It was Harold Washington that put sanctuary for- - Okay, and nobody had in view this thing - Okay, and nobody had in view this thing that's occurring right now.

- [Wanda] The deluge.

- [Dr. Carol] Okay, nobody had this in mind.

- [Hermene] Not these numbers.

- [Dr. Carol] When they talked about it in these numbers.

Just bus loads and bus loads without any due, organized process.

So, that was never the vision.

- If the mayors are going to go visit the city, shouldn't somebody visit Texas to say stop it, no more?

- [Dr. Carol] Shouldn't some negotiation to there is what it'll take for them to stop it?

Because I don't.

- It won't, it won't.

400,000 migrants are being staged to come into America at this point.

420,000 have come, and 400,000 are staged to come in addition.

- So, what's happening in Venezuela that's so bad that they can't stay in their countries and fix it like we have to stay in America and fix it?

- After Hugo Javez, died.

- Killed.

- Well, he had- - Well, okay.

- After he died.

- Yes, he died, Maduro became the vice president, and the United States shut down all of their operations and agreements with Venezuela.

They now don't have food.

Their living conditions are terrible.

They're dying there, and they have no choice, but to leave.

- Okay, just for their good health.

Just for their welfare.

- I mean, there's nothing you can do if you can't get healthcare, you can't- It's $34 of Venezuelan dollars to $1 and they can't get the 34.

- Okay, do you really think that we will put tents We want to give the working permits.

What jobs might they have.

Yeah.

Are we talking about skilled labor or are we talking about what are we talking about in terms of labor on.

The north side, that this was a few months ago, that, I forget the source.

I can provide it to you so that they had decided how they were going to work with the Latino population.

Okay.

They said 68% would be trained for construction.

electricians, masonry.

Yes.

They had for the men.

And then the rest of it would be divided up into hospitality care services and education services.

So they have it split out into what two people will do, which makes sense.

You have someone, oh, that cooks, someone that cares for the children, someone who educates and the men go to work.

And many of these migrants will tell you their wives don't work, that they are the ones who go out and make the money.

They have a traditional family and didn't.

Dick Durbin said.

We need a we need people to work jobs.

I've heard that, okay.

I just want to know what jobs is he talking about?

I would also like to see what kind of what the actual data is showing us about the skills of the people who are coming.

That's right.

I believe they're across various kinds of lines, various kinds of people who are able for work.

We've got jobs available, but we've also got people who need jobs, who are citizens, who need to be prepared and trained and placed in jobs.

And what we've got to be able to do is to achieve a balance.

Absolutely.

We've got to be able to tune for balance.

So one to you spoke about kind of a plan on the North side, correct, on how citizens were planning various, jobs and so forth.

But on the South and the West side, that's not happening.

Nothing of that plan you're talking about.

I have I have I have to give you the statistical information.

But in this.

Sense.

Right.

But it was the citizens that came together under, I think Camp Buckner knows about it, too.

Okay.

Do you really think that we will put tents and 77 differen in 77 different communities in Chicago?

- It won't work.

- Well, first of all, no.

Absolutely not.

They're not gonna put tents in 77 communities in Chicago.

Just like they didn't put Section 8 in 77 communities in Chicago.

They determine which communities, what's going go in by who's got the highest tolerance level for bull.

And so you have to see what goes on from that point afterwards.

- Right.

- You know, so if we are looking at a way to evenly disperse, we've got to look at what is the available real estate.

How do we convert that real estate?

We've got all kinds of empty places where people can go in various communities, whether they're plants, whether there's housing stock, whether it's schools, churches, closed down, mental health and rehab centers.

Even hospital spaces.

- Correct.

- Okay, all of which have closed in this city and state.

We have got to be much more creative about where we're going.

And much more adaptive in terms of adaptive reuse and how these things are done.

- As the migrants come here, as they get off the bus, they're being given financial assistance.

They're being given a tent, three meals a day.

They're being fed.

They have cards where they can go to the store and shop.

They have telephones.

Where's this coming from?

Do you know?

- And they can go to school.

Have you ever heard of your child going to school without being tested?

- No, because our law says- - I didn't know that was happening.

I thought that was not happening.

- No, it is happening.

- Yes, they're going to school without, they're getting, without the vaccine, without shots?

- No vaccine?

- Nothing.

Why do you think Chicago's being targeted?

Is it because the convention is coming, and they're trying to exhaust our resources?

That's the Republican plot?

- Well, Chicago's seen as a very democratic place.

And you have to see the hand of the Republicans and everything that's happening here as to who goes where, where they go, and why they're being sent a particular place.

We've declared ourselves a sanctuary city.

The convention is also coming, and we are a city that people like to point to for problems and issues and concerns.

- Yes, yes.

- So, this gives them more to talk about, you know, because we don't look good if we show our efforts to be humanitarian, ending up with people sleeping on the sidewalk with folks not being able to go inside to use the bathroom.

- Right.

- Or with the expectation that hundreds of people will use one porta potty or any of the other ridiculous things that have been going on in our city.

- Great points.

- So, The Chicago Sun Times wrote an editorial, and this is what they said, "A humanitarian emergency is being politically exploited by a Republican governor and other GOP leaders who would rather callously send asylum seekers to big cities with democratic mayors more than work with President Joe Biden and Democrats."

- Correct.

- "In Congress to fix the issue.

Half of the arrivals are housed in temporary shelters run by the city, but at least 25,000 are living in police station lobbies and O'Hara and Midway airports."

That's a quote from an editorial in The Chicago Sun Times.

- That's true.

- Well, I hope the powers to be of our city have heard our conversation today.

Carol, you ought to be consulted.

You ought to definitely be in place.

And you too, Wanda, because you have expertise.

That's my frustration.

There are expertise in this city.

- Yes, yes.

- That you can call on who can help you figure this out.

None of us have the answer, but we can get to some solutions.

- But collectively we do.

All of us are smarter than any one of us.

- [Hermene] That's right.

- If you put together people who have some lived experiences- - [Hermene] That's right.

- Some practical experiences.

- [Hermene] That's right.

- I had staff that had been at FEMA and places like that.

So, they knew things that could happen.

You've got great public health officials here in this city.

Again, they need to be asked.

They need to be put around the table together.

This involves some synergistic work, not just one little person at a time.

- [Hermene] Not pictorial work.

- Correct, correct.

And they keep bringing in new people that don't have any- - Experience.

- Citywide experience, countywide experience, statewide experience.

- It's a problem.

- It's a problem.

- Well, I hope, thank you very much for a vigorous conversation on migrants.

I think we've come up with some ideas and some thoughts, and I hope the right people hear it and listen.

But most of all, we are the citizens.

That's our tax paying dollars.

And we need to step up and say something.

Thanks for being with us.

I'm Hermene Hartman, "N'Digo Studio."

- This is our community, And you just don't dump Anything on us!

And expect us to except it!

Now there taking away A asset, That people work thirty years My buddy worked years To put together programs!

That there taking away From us black people I believe in a democracy!

I believe in a democratic Process That says before You make these decisions!

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