CHICAGO — The city has begun impounding “rogue buses” that do not follow established guidelines for dropping off migrants coming to Chicago.
The City Council passed an ordinance Wednesday to penalize bus operators who drop migrants off late at night or in locations other than the city’s designated landing area near Downtown.
In recent months, so-called “rogue buses” that arrive without prior notice have left city officials scrambling to accommodate asylum seekers.
Now, those buses “shall be subject to seizure and impoundment,” according to the ordinance passed Wednesday. They will also be fined $3,000 on top of storage and towing fees.
The city towed and impounded the first bus under the new order at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office said in a statement Thursday. The bus was coming from Eagle Pass, Texas, and had 49 passengers — some of whom “had onward movement or family/friends in the area and others were placed in a temporary shelter or District 12 emergency staging area based on bed availability,” the spokesperson said.
Mayoral advisor Jason Lee said the “main trigger” for impounding the bus was the lack of a necessary permit through the Chicago Department of Transportation, but that it also arrived outside the city’s drop-off window.
Another bus carrying migrants in Chicago also arrived after the 5 p.m. curfew, but ended up not stopping and ultimately left the city, Lee told reporters ahead of a special City Council meeting Thursday morning regarding Chicago’s sanctuary city status.
“I know they were trying to, you know, trail it, just to see what it was doing, but it just kind of left the city. So obviously our team didn’t go past the city limits,” he said.
Buses have previously tried to drop migrants in the middle of traffic, on random street corners and at O’Hare Airport, the statement from the Mayor’s Office said.
Bus companies have also tried to drop off migrants in Rosement, Cicero, Schiller Park and other suburbs, which have begun to pass similar safety ordinances in response, the statement said.
“As temperatures continue to fall, the City is enacting stricter penalties to discourage bus companies from flouting these protocols. This inhumane treatment further endangers the safety and security of asylum-seekers and adds additional strain to city departments, volunteers and mutual aid partners tasked with easing what is already a harsh transition,” the statement said.
While Lee said it’s too early to “declare victory,” over the so-called rogue buses, the new policy was clearly having an impact.
“We’ve implemented a program that clearly is producing reactions from the busing companies. Now whether or not they go back to the drawing board and figure out either how to comply with our regulations or some other tactic we don’t know, it’s yet to be named,” Lee said.
The number of buses carrying new arrivals to Chicago exploded over the spring and summer, with 488 of 598 total buses arriving since May 12.
As of Wednesday morning, 354 asylum seekers were living in police stations, down from a high of more than 3,000 in mid-October, according to city data. More than 13,700 migrants are currently living across 26 city-run shelters.
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