Democrat-led cities continue to grapple with how to house migrants as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to implement a mass deportation of people who crossed the border illegally.
Officials in sanctuary cities such as Chicago, New York, Boston, and Denver have vowed not to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials after incoming border czar Tom Homan launches Trump's plan.
Still, Democrats and immigration advocates are concerned about what the mass deportation will mean.
"What we're trying to figure out is how much of it will be bluster, and how much of it will be real," said Rep. Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, D-Ill., whose congressional district includes Chicago, Politico reported.
Amid the Biden administration's border crisis, which prompted Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to bus migrants to blue cities, the municipalities struggled to find sufficient housing to accommodate the invasion.
Migrants slept in police stations and hospitals, and New York Mayor Eric Adams even suggested housing migrants on a barge.
In the spring, blue cities instituted substantial changes to their shelter policies, The Washington Post reported.
Chicago officials began evicting migrants who had overstayed a new 60-day time limit. New York altered its housing rules for migrants without children and plans to close about 25 shelter facilities. Denver officials began closing some migrant shelters in and reinstated time limits for stays.
In November, NBC10 Boston reported Massachusetts Democrat Gov. Maura Healey's office intended over the next roughly 19 months to phase out the use of hotels and motels for emergency shelter, and further shorten the length of stay in traditional shelter settings while extending stays in overflow sites.
With Trump's mass deportation plan approaching, blue city officials are worried about shelters closing.
"We're dealing with a crisis that is about to get even worse once the shelters for migrants close," Antonio Gutierrez, a community organizer with Organized Communities Against Deportations in Chicago, told Politico.
The closing of Massachusetts shelters has advocates warning that migrant families will not have enough time to find stable housing under six-month limit and new eligibility criteria.
"We're concerned that it's just not realistic to expect a majority of families to be able to secure alternative housing or permanent housing in that time frame," Kelly Turley, the associate director of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless, told the outlet.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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