Durante casi seis meses, marido y mujer de un pueblo rural ecuatoriano habían luchado por encontrar trabajo en Chicago. Habían ido a clínicas y mendigado frente a tiendas de comestibles.

Pero entonces, la madre de 36 años encontró un terapeuta que la ayudó a aliviar su trauma y obtener la documentación adecuada para trabajar legalmente. Cuando le ofrecieron un trabajo empacando frutas y verduras en Mariano’s en Lakeview, su esposo le dijo que estaba feliz de que ella trabajara. Pero el hombre de 37 años todavía no había encontrado trabajo. El estrés estaba pasando factura.

El 25 de mayo, mientras Juma trabajaba dentro de la tienda, su esposo mendigaba afuera con el hijo de 15 años, la hija de 19 y el nieto de 6 meses de la pareja. Un poco antes de las 8:30 a.m., les dijo a los adolescentes que iba a comprar unos zapatos nuevos. Luego se fue y nunca volvió.

“Era como algo normal. Todo fue normal, pero nunca volvimos a saber de él”, dijo Juma.

Desde su desaparición, Juma ha pasado semanas aturdida y conteniendo las lágrimas. Ella caminó por la orilla del lago, llamándolo por su nombre: Angel Mashiant. Presentó una denuncia de persona desaparecida y se acercó a los coches de policía para pedir ayuda.

Pero recibe respuestas de la policía y no sabe qué hacer.

Aunque no está claro qué pasó con el marido de Juma, la madre inmigrante representa un fenómeno común entre los recién llegados: después de viajar miles de kilómetros para llegar a Estados Unidos, algunos hombres inmigrantes aparentemente abandonan o desaparecen de las vidas de sus parejas e hijos, dejando que se las arreglen por sí mismos.

Mientras más de 43,000 inmigrantes han pasado por Chicago, enviados en autobuses y aviones desde la frontera sur desde agosto de 2022, se pueden encontrar cientos de madres solteras con hijos alojadas en los 17 refugios gestionados por la ciudad y el estado. No está claro cuántos llegaron con pareja.

Las mujeres que quedaron ahora están tratando de encontrar trabajo mientras crían a sus hijos, todo ello sin la ayuda de sus parejas.

Los terapeutas autorizados y quienes trabajan estrechamente con inmigrantes dicen que la frustración y la vergüenza que sienten los hombres por no poder mantener a sus familias puede ser un factor en su decisión de simplemente marcharse.

“Vemos casos como ese”, dijo Ana Gil-García, fundadora de la Alianza Venezolana de Illinois, quien ha dirigido sesiones informativas para inmigrantes en docenas de refugios en toda la ciudad. “Cuando los hombres no pueden proveer, deciden irse. No asumen la responsabilidad y luego mamá se queda con los niños”.

‘No sé si podré establecerme aquí solo’

Nareida Santana, de 37 años, de Cartagena, Colombia, se paró afuera de un refugio para inmigrantes en West Loop el martes y contó cómo ella y su pareja viajaron durante días a través de seis países para llegar a Chicago a fines de abril.

Hace unas dos semanas, dijo, él se fue repentinamente. Ella no sabe adónde fue. Ella movía su cuerpo hacia adelante y hacia atrás mientras hablaba.

Tiene un niño de 7 años y ahora tiene que hacer todo sola. Las tareas se acumulan: inscribirlo en la escuela, moverse en transporte público, encontrar trabajo y vivienda.

“Estoy muy asustada”, dijo. “No sé si podré establecerme aquí sola”.

Santana dijo que sabe que hay mujeres cuyos maridos las han abandonado y que están en peor situación que ella, que están embarazadas o tienen necesidades de salud importantes.

Dijo que los trabajadores del refugio le están dando orientación sobre cómo presentarse a entrevistas de trabajo, pero que será inútil hasta que obtenga un permiso de trabajo válido.

Por ahora, está tratando incansablemente de encontrar trabajo para poder salir del refugio.

“Es imposible descansar mucho allí”, dijo, señalando el almacén de ladrillo que alberga a más de 700 inmigrantes en cinco pisos.

Verónica Sánchez, trabajadora social autorizada, dirigió esta primavera una serie de círculos de sanación para inmigrantes en la Parent University de Pilsen a través de un esfuerzo organizado por el grupo de ayuda mutua Southwest Collective. Sánchez dijo que los inmigrantes hablaban abiertamente sobre la tendencia de los hombres a dejar a sus esposas.

Mientras los voluntarios proporcionaban comidas calientes y cuidaban a los niños en una habitación separada, los solicitantes de asilo adultos participaban en terapias grupales, con temas que iban desde la ansiedad y la depresión hasta los roles tradicionales de género. Sánchez dijo que muchos han estado tan concentrados en satisfacer sus necesidades básicas que no han tenido tiempo para pensar en su salud mental.

En algunos casos, dijo, esto lleva a separaciones de último momento.

“Al principio hablamos un poco sobre la depresión”, dijo Sánchez. “Les dije que íbamos a hablar muy abiertamente sobre cualquier tristeza que pudieran sentir”.

En una sesión grupal a mediados de mayo, Sánchez dirigió una discusión sobre lo que constituye una relación sana.

“He visto parejas que llevan muchos años juntas y llegan aquí y eso cambia todo”, dijo una mujer de Venezuela cuyo nombre no se revela por cuestiones de privacidad. “Sé que es difícil aquí, pero ¿cómo es posible que no recuerden todo lo que han pasado?”

‘No es mi sueño americano’

La ciudad no pudo facilitar inmediatamente el número actual de mujeres inmigrantes solas con hijos en sus albergues, aunque sí hace un seguimiento de la composición familiar en el sistema de albergues.

Los responsables municipales afirman que los gestores de casos remiten a las residentes de los refugios a organizaciones sin ánimo de lucro para que reciban apoyo en salud mental. Además, la ciudad forma a cientos de empleados de los albergues sobre cómo ayudar a las mujeres que pueden sufrir violencia de género, incluida la violencia doméstica.

“El alcalde Johnson cree que todos los habitantes de Chicago merecen atención sanitaria mental y conductual, tanto si acaban de llegar como si llevan aquí generaciones”, dijo un portavoz municipal en un comunicado.

Yoleida Ramírez, madre soltera de 42 años de Caracas (Venezuela), que se aloja en el mismo albergue que Juma en el Lower West Side, dijo que ha buscado y solicitado trabajo estable en Chicago desde noviembre, pero no ha encontrado nada.

Ella y sus tres hijas pequeñas ingresaron en un centro de acogida en diciembre, y hace poco el personal le dijo a Ramírez que tiene que encontrar su propia vivienda antes del 23 de junio. Le preocupa no poder hacerlo.

“Es muy difícil”, dice entre lágrimas. “He buscado y buscado, pero no encuentro trabajo”.

Después de dejar a sus hijos en el colegio a las 7 a.m., va a Home Depot y reza para encontrar trabajo pintando o limpiando.

Se marchó de su país porque allí tampoco encontraba trabajo, dice. No tenía dinero suficiente para comprar comida a sus hijos.

“Había oído hablar del sueño americano, pero este no es mi sueño”, afirma.

La desaparición

La última mañana que Juma vio a su marido, dijo que se despertaron temprano en el refugio y él se burló de ella diciéndole que iba a llegar tarde a su turno de trabajo en Mariano’s. Ella se puso un delantal y él le pasó un par de calcetines y 2 dólares para el autobús. Ella se puso un delantal y él le pasó un par de calcetines y 2 dólares para el autobús, dijo.

Mashiant mendigaba fuera de Mariano’s con su familia mientras Juma trabajaba dentro. Les dijo a sus hijos que esperaran mientras él compraba zapatos nuevos. Se puso la capucha y pasó junto a los contenedores. No se le ha visto desde entonces.

Cuando Juma regresó de su turno, ella y sus hijos esperaron. Él siempre regresaba, dijo. Pero pasaron las horas y no había rastro de él. Al día siguiente ella presentó una denuncia a la policía.

Semanas después, la falta de un cierre es doloroso para Juma. Ella sigue negando que se haya ido.

Ha tenido problemas para confirmar que la policía haya procesado su informe de persona desaparecida porque cuando llama para comprobarlo, las personas que responden sólo hablan inglés. Ella cree que han dejado de buscar a Mashiant.

Un portavoz del Departamento de Policía de Chicago dijo al Tribune en un comunicado que “el informe no ha sido cerrado en este momento. No tenemos acceso a la mayoría de las denuncias de personas desaparecidas porque están redactadas en papel”.

Juma dijo que el refugio le dijo el 2 de junio que debido a que Mashiant había desaparecido, ella perdería su lugar en el sistema. Desde entonces lo rescindieron, dijo, pero Juma llora cuando habla de ello.

“Me dijeron que le iban a quitar el catre”, dijo.

Ella ha hecho todo lo posible para buscarlo. Puso carteles en las farolas cerca del supermercado. Obtuvo imágenes de video de un negocio cercano, que lo muestran moviendo los brazos y mirando algo a lo lejos mientras camina por el callejón.

Pero ella no tiene respuestas. No puede hablar de él sin llorar. Se pregunta si habrá intentado ahogarse en el lago. Ella deambula por la orilla buscando señales de su cuerpo flotante.

‘No estaba en su sano juicio’

Como muchos inmigrantes que han llegado a la ciudad para escapar de la pobreza y la violencia en América Latina, Juma y su familia no conocen a nadie en Chicago. La transición fue difícil, dijo, y han recibido reacciones violentas por mendigar.

“Hubo un hombre que nos arrojó comida y dijo que esperaba que ganara Trump para que nos deportaran a nuestro país”, dijo.

Juma dijo que su familia abandonó su pequeña comunidad agrícola en Ecuador a finales de septiembre después de que sus hijos de 19 y 15 años enfrentaran actos consecutivos de violencia de pandillas.

Su familia recibió llamadas cada vez más amenazantes, por lo que decidieron abandonar Ecuador. Llegaron a Chicago en diciembre. En el camino hacia aquí, ella, su esposo y su hijo fueron secuestrados en México durante cinco días, dijo.

Antes de que su esposo desapareciera, Juma había desentrañado su difícil pasado con Erika Meza, una maestra trabajadora social autorizada de Onward House en Belmont Cragin que dirige sesiones de terapia grupal con inmigrantes. Meza dijo que tiene una relación especialmente estrecha con Juma.

Durante meses, dijo Meza, la madre ecuatoriana había expresado ansiedad por no tener un ingreso estable. Los funcionarios del refugio amenazaron con desalojarlos del refugio donde se aloja actualmente Juma.

Meza dijo que ayudó a la pareja a presentar sus trámites para trabajar legalmente en los Estados Unidos, pero Mashiant todavía estaba solicitando empleo.

“El estaba empezando a ponerse muy triste al quedarse en el refugio”, dijo Meza.

Juma le dijo a su marido que también fuera a terapia de grupo porque, según ella, la ayudaba a comprender y afrontar su depresión, pero él no había ido.

Meza sospecha que Mashiant se fue en un momento de pánico.

“Creo que no estaba en su sano juicio”, dijo. “La depresión y la ansiedad pueden llevarte a hacer cosas que nunca podrías imaginar”.

Sigue buscando

El marido de Juma era un hombre tranquilo que creció en la selva de Ecuador. No sabía leer ni escribir.

Otras mujeres en el refugio dicen que debe haberse ido con otra mujer, pero Juma dice que sabe que eso no es cierto porque él no conoce a nadie aquí.

“Lo único que necesito es que aparezca para poder pagar un lugar al que ir. Esos eran nuestros planes. Planeábamos trabajar para pagarnos un lugar donde vivir”, dijo.

Como muchas otras, Juma ahora debe hacer todo sola. Tiene que trabajar y recoger a su hijo del colegio.

El miércoles por la mañana, una mujer que limpia las calles afuera de Mariano’s le dijo a Juma que podía tomar el autobús hacia el oeste hasta la última parada donde había un lago.

Juma subió a su nieto en un carrito al autobús de la CTA. Lo condujo hasta la última parada, desmontó y miró a su alrededor.

“¿Hay un lago cerca de aquí?” dijo ella, confundida.

Estaba a 5 millas del Lago Michigan. Poco a poco la realidad se fue imponiendo. Su rostro se hundió decepcionada.

Esperó en la parada del autobús para volver al Mariano’s donde desapareció su marido.

— Traducción por José Luis Sánchez Pando / TCA

The multi-vehicle crash involving a northbound #8 Halsted bus occurred near South Halsted and West 35th streets, according to the CTA.

Fire officials checked in with 17 people but made just five hospital transfers, said Larry Langford, a spokesman for the Chicago Fire Department. Two people were listed in serious condition, one person in stable condition and two in good condition, Langford said.

Chunks of concrete and broken glass littered Halsted, along with a half dozen damaged vehicles. Several street signs were mowed down. The facade of the newly opened Ramova Grill was also damaged.

“We have no idea how it occurred,” Langford said about the crash.

In the early afternoon Monday, traffic was closed along 35th Street between Wallace and Morgan, and on Halsted between 33rd Street and 37th Street. The CTA reported no reroutes “at this time.”

Officials from the CTA, CPD and Chicago Department of Transportation are investigating.

Chicago Tribune’s Sam Charles contributed.

Shortly after 6:30 p.m., the pair was standing on the sidewalk on the 11800 block of South Michigan Avenue when shots were fired from a vehicle.

The boy was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center’s Comer Children’s Hospital in fair condition with a gunshot wound to the right leg. The woman was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn also in fair condition with a gunshot wound to the right leg, police said.

No one is in custody for the attack, and detectives are investigating.

For nearly six months, the husband and wife from a rural Ecuadorian town had struggled to find jobs in Chicago. They had gone to clinics and panhandled in front of grocery stores.

But then, the 36-year-old mother found a therapist, who helped soothe her trauma and obtain the right paperwork to work legally. When she was offered a job packing fruits and vegetables at Mariano’s in Lakeview, her husband told her he was happy she was working. But the 37-year-old still hadn’t found a job himself. The stress was taking a toll.

Mujer inmigrante busca a su marido desaparecido, algo común cuando los hombres luchan por encontrar trabajo

On May 25, as Juma worked inside the store, her husband panhandled outside with the couple’s 15-year-old son, 19-year-old daughter and 6-month-old grandchild. A little before 8:30 a.m., he told the teens he was going to buy some new shoes. Then he left and never came back.

“It was like normal. Everything was normal, but we never heard from him again,” Juma said.

Since his disappearance, Juma has spent weeks in a daze, holding back tears. She’s walked along the lakefront, calling his name — Angel Mashiant. She’s filed a missing person’s report and approached police cars to ask for help.

She’s gotten no answers from police and doesn’t know what to do.

Though it’s uncertain what happened to Juma’s husband, the migrant mother represents a common phenomenon for new arrivals: After traveling thousands of miles to make it to the U.S., some migrant men seemingly walk out or vanish from the lives of their partners and children, leaving them to fend for themselves.

As more than 43,000 migrants have passed through Chicago, sent on buses and planes from the southern border since August 2022, hundreds of single mothers with children can be found staying in the 17 shelters run by the city and state. It’s unclear how many had arrived with partners. 

The women who have been left are now trying to find work while raising their children — all without the help of their partners.

Licensed therapists and those working closely with migrants say the frustration and shame felt by men of not being able to provide for their families may be a factor in their choice to just walk away.

“We see cases like that,” said Ana Gil-Garcia, founder of the Illinois Venezuelan Alliance, who has led informational sessions for migrants at dozens of shelters across the city. “When men can’t provide, they decide to leave. They don’t take responsibility — and then mom is left with the children.”

‘I don’t know if I’ll be able to establish myself here alone’

Nareida Santana, 37, from Cartagena, Colombia, stood outside a migrant shelter in the West Loop Tuesday and recounted how she and her partner traveled for days across six countries to reach Chicago at the end of April. 

About two weeks ago, she said, he suddenly left. She doesn’t know where he went. She shifted her weight back and forth as she talked. 

She has a 7-year-old boy and now has to do everything alone. The tasks stack up: enrolling him in school, navigating public transit, finding work and housing.

“I’m so scared,” she said. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to establish myself here alone.”

Santana said she knows there are women whose husbands have left them who are in worse situations than she is, who are pregnant or have significant health needs.

She said shelter workers are giving her guidance on how to interview for jobs, but it will be useless until she gets a valid work permit.

For now, she’s tirelessly trying to find work so she can move out of the shelter. 

“It’s impossible to rest much in there,” she said, gesturing to the brick warehouse sheltering over 700 migrants on five floors.

Veronica Sanchez, a licensed social worker, led a series of healing circles for migrants at the Parent University in Pilsen this spring through an effort organized by the mutual aid group Southwest Collective. Sanchez said migrants talked openly about the trend of men leaving their wives.

As volunteers supplied hot meals and child care in a separate room, adult asylum-seekers engaged in group therapies, with topics ranging from anxiety and depression to traditional gender roles. Sanchez said many have been so focused on getting their basic needs met they haven’t had the time to think about their mental health.

In some cases, she said, this leads to last-minute separations.

“We discussed a little bit about depression at the beginning,” Sanchez said. “I told them we were going to talk very openly about any sadness they might be feeling.” 

At a group session in mid-May, Sanchez led a discussion about what constitutes a healthy relationship.

“I’ve seen couples that have been together for many years, and they arrive here and it changes everything,” said a woman from Venezuela whose name is not being used out of privacy concerns. “I know it’s hard here, but how can they not remember everything they’ve been through?”

‘Not my American dream’

The city couldn’t immediately provide the current number of single migrant women with children in its shelters, though it does track family composition in the shelter system.

City officials said case managers refer shelter residents to nonprofits for mental health support. Additionally, the city trains hundreds of shelter staff on how to provide support for women who may experience gender-based violence, including domestic violence.

“Mayor Johnson believes that all Chicagoans deserve mental and behavioral healthcare, whether they just arrived or they have been here for generations,” a city spokesperson said in a statement.

Yoleida Ramirez, a 42-year-old single mother from Caracas, Venezuela, who is staying at the same shelter as Juma on the Lower West Side, said she has searched and applied for stable work in Chicago since November but hasn’t found anything.

She and her three little girls were placed in a shelter in December, and the staff recently told Ramirez that she needs to find her own housing by June 23. She’s worried she won’t be able to. 

“It’s so difficult,” she said, through tears. “I’ve looked and looked, but can’t find a job.”

After she drops her kids off at school at 7 a.m., she goes to Home Depot and prays she can find work painting or cleaning.

She left her home country because she couldn’t find work there either, she said. She didn’t have enough money to buy her children food.

“I’d heard about the American dream, but this is not my dream,” she said.

The disappearance

The last morning Juma saw her husband, she said they woke up early in the shelter and he teased her that she was going to be late for her work shift at Mariano’s. She put on an apron and he passed her a pair of socks and $2 for the bus, she said.

Mashiant panhandled outside Mariano’s with their family while Juma worked inside. He told his kids to wait while he got new shoes. He put his hood up and walked past the dumpsters. He hasn’t been seen since.

When Juma got back from her shift, she and her children waited. He always came back, she said. But hours passed and there was no sign of him. She filed a police report the next day.

Weeks later, the lack of closure is painful for Juma. She’s still in denial that he’s gone.

She’s had trouble confirming that police have processed her missing person report because when she calls to check on it, the people who answer only speak English. She thinks they’ve given up searching for Mashiant.

A spokesman for the Chicago Police Department told the Tribune in a statement that, “The report has not been finalized at this time. We do not have access to most missing persons reports because they are done on paper.”

Juma said the shelter told her on June 2 that because Mashiant had disappeared, she would lose her place in the system. They’ve since rescinded that, she said, but Juma cries when she talks about it.

“They told me they were going to take his cot away,” she said.

She’s done everything she can to look for him. She put posters on lamps near the grocery store. She obtained video footage from a nearby business, which shows him swinging his arms and eyeing something in the distance as he walks through the alley.

But she has no answers. She can’t talk about him without crying. She wonders if he may have tried to drown himself in the lake. She wanders along the shore looking for signs of his floating body.

‘He wasn’t in his right mind’

Like many migrants who have come to the city to escape poverty and violence in Latin America, Juma and her family don’t know anyone in Chicago. The transition was difficult, she said, and they’ve received backlash for panhandling.

“There was a man who threw food at us, and said he hoped Trump won so we would be deported to our country,” she said.

Juma said their family left their small agricultural community in Ecuador in late September after her 19-year-old and 15-year-old faced back-to-back acts of gang violence. 

Their family received increasingly threatening calls, so they decided to leave Ecuador. They arrived in Chicago in December. On the way here, she and her husband and son were kidnapped in Mexico for five days, she said.

Before her husband went missing, Juma had unpacked her difficult past with Erika Meza, a licensed master social worker with Onward House in Belmont Cragin who leads group therapy sessions with migrants. Meza said she has an especially close relationship with Juma.

For months, Meza said, the Ecuadorian mother had expressed anxiety over not having a stable income. Shelter officials were threatening to evict them from the shelter where Juma is currently staying.

Meza said she helped the couple submit their paperwork to work legally in the United States, but Mashiant was still applying for jobs. 

“He was beginning to get really sad, staying at the shelter,” Meza said.

Juma told her husband to go to group therapy, too, because she said it helped her to understand and cope with her depression, but he hadn’t gone.

Meza suspects Mashiant left in a moment of panic.

“I think he wasn’t in his right mind,” she said. “Depression and anxiety can bring you to do things you could never imagine.”

Still searching

Juma’s husband was a quiet man who grew up in the jungle in Ecuador. He couldn’t read and write.

Other women at the shelter say he must have left with another woman, but Juma says she knows that’s not true because he doesn’t know anybody here. 

“The only thing I need is for him to appear so I can pay for a place for us to go. Those were our plans. We planned to work, to pay for a place for us to live,” she said.

Like many others, Juma is now left to do everything alone. She has to work and pick up her son from school.

Wednesday morning, a woman who cleans the streets outside Mariano’s told Juma that she could take the bus west to the last stop where there was a lake.

Juma loaded her grandchild in a carriage up onto the CTA bus. She rode it to the last stop, dismounted and looked around.

“Is there a lake near here?” she said, confused.

She was 5 miles from Lake Michigan. Slowly the reality set in. Her face dropped.

She waited at the bus stop to go back to the Mariano’s where her husband first disappeared.

nsalzman@chicagotribune.com

But up north, the implications for Chicago are just as significant, given that Biden’s move came less than three months before the arrival of the Democratic National Convention.

Many have predicted Republicans such as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott would pounce on the opportunity to increase the number of migrant buses sent to Chicago in order to embarrass the liberal city during the high-profile event and try to weaken Biden in his rematch against Donald Trump. Limiting asylum-seekers’ entry into the U.S. before then could make it more difficult for Abbott and others to follow through on that gambit.

Biden’s policy is designed to drastically curtail the number of migrants seeking asylum at the southern border by halting illegal crossings during periods of high traffic, such as right now. In Chicago — ground zero for how the nation’s recent migrant crisis has played out — political leaders and advocates had mixed reactions to the move.

The divisions reflect an ongoing tug-of-war between progressive and centrist blocs in the Democratic Party, a coalition that’s showing strain as left-leaning party members rip Biden for his handling of the Israel-Hamas war.

Mayor Brandon Johnson issued a statement Wednesday that neither endorsed nor condemned Biden’s new asylum restrictions, keeping in line with his reluctance to publicly criticize the president. He instead sought to place blame with Congress, where House Republicans turned down proposals to deal with the situation.

“As President Joe Biden has said, our reliance on a nearly 40-year-old immigration process is inadequate for effectively and humanely addressing today’s challenges,” Johnson wrote in a Tuesday statement. “It is time for Congress to finally work with President Biden to pass comprehensive immigration reform, and create fair and functional policies for our country.”

Gov. J.B. Pritzker told reporters Wednesday that Biden’s executive order was “imperfect” but rejected the premise that it was election-year politicking.

“In my view, we now have a proposal from the president that is, again, it’s not a perfect solution,” Pritzker said. “We’d like the Congress to take action, but the Republican-controlled House is unwilling to do so. … And so, the president is using whatever tools he has to do what is necessary.”

About 43,000 asylum-seekers have made their way to Chicago since 2022, when Abbott sent his first migrant buses north. The resultant humanitarian crisis at one point saw impoverished migrant families sleeping outside Chicago police stations and became a lightning rod for GOP criticism of Biden’s immigration record.

Now, with the White House taking its boldest action on border enforcement yet, local leaders in the city that will serve as the backdrop to the convention celebrating Biden’s nomination are also attacking him from the left. Though Johnson has opted to tread more carefully as he prepares for his role as Chicago’s biggest cheerleader during the DNC, the same could not be said about his most vocal surrogates.

Johnson’s handpicked Housing Committee chair, Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, continued to voice disapproval with the Biden administration following the executive order announcement.

“It’s critical that President Biden understands that following the recipe of fascists like Trump is not going to yield results,” Sigcho-Lopez, 25th, said Wednesday. “He’s playing into Trump’s playbook, which is, create chaos for political gain, chaos that has been created throughout Latin America and chaos that is now here in our country.”

Sigcho-Lopez’s earlier reproach of the Biden administration landed him in hot water when colleagues in April attempted to censure him for speaking at a demonstration against the DNC and Gaza war that included a veteran torching an American flag. Though the vote to punish him failed, the saga forced Johnson to address questions on whether this much intraparty strife unfolding in the backyard of the DNC would hurt Biden’s reelection chances.

U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” Garcia, too issued a statement this week calling Biden’s move “politically motivated.”

“This renewed ban is bad policy, since evidence suggests asylum bans simply do not work. It is also bad politics, since it attempts to mimic Trump-like policies,” Garcia wrote Tuesday. “Instead of enacting cruel and ineffective policies, we must remain committed to creating a fair and human asylum system that welcomes people who come to our country.”

Garcia, whose district includes the heavily Latino Southwest Side of Chicago, instead called for Biden to equip the U.S. Department of Homeland Security with the resources to process asylum applications at a faster rate. He also said the White House should provide relief for longtime immigrants too.

U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez, who represents the Northwest Side of Chicago and northwest suburbs, echoed the disappointment in a statement also comparing the policy to Trump.

Not all local Democrats expressed dismay over Biden, however. Ald. Gilbert Villegas, 36th, said the outcome was not ideal “but Congress has failed to address a comprehensive immigration plan. And what we’re seeing is the president being the adult in the room.”

“That’s the frustrating part within the Democratic Party,” Villegas said. “We’re a big tent, but we have to understand that at some point, there needs to be decisions made that are not going to be very popular. … It’s unfortunate that the folks from the left — the far-left, the extreme left of the Democratic Party — are trying to compare President Biden to Trump.”

Local immigration advocacy groups in Chicago shook their heads at the action they said harks back to the previous president, who in 2018 utilized the same immigration law Biden is leaning on now to try to ban asylum-seekers from the southern border. As with what unfolded in the wake of Trump’s actions back then, Biden’s new order is likely to receive legal challenges.

Lawrence Benito, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said Biden’s policy showed “disregard for those seeking safety as well as those who have stepped up against cynical tactics from anti-immigrant governors.” He and other advocates also noted the time was now to pressure Biden to use his executive authority to issue work permits for undocumented immigrants who have been in the country for much longer.

Ald. Michael Rodriguez, 22nd, who represents the Southwest Side Little Village neighborhood, said Biden’s order was not the solution Chicagoans were seeking when they called on the federal government to take responsibility for the burden local municipalities such as Chicago were shouldering during the migrant crisis.

“The president should think twice about who his base really is,” said Rodriguez, Johnson’s handpicked chair of the Workforce Development Committee. “I’m really disheartened by this move. I’m upset and I expect more. And I hope this doesn’t cost the president at the ballot box more than he thinks it helps him.”

Another member of Johnson’s City Council leadership team, Immigration Committee chair Ald. Andre Vasquez, questioned whether the policy was simply border security theater during a heated presidential race.

“It seems incredibly cynical, given that the election is around the corner,” Vasquez, 40th, said. “Now as you see public statements from folks, it does fracture the party. … Trying to make the case of Chicago and how we Democrats are a party that celebrates our cultural diversity and welcomes immigrants, I think ends up ringing a little more hollow.”

Meanwhile, humanitarian organizations at the southern border are unsure whether Biden’s decision to limit illegal crossings at the border will actually curb the number of new arrivals to Chicago, said Haniel Lopez, senior program officer for Search for Common Ground Mexico.

Lopez, who works with migrants in the border town of Juarez, Mexico, said human trafficking operations are at an all-time high and he believes those fleeing their home countries will just find other ways to enter the U.S. — but at the expense of their safety and well-being. That makes Biden’s actions “more a political movement than actually seeing people for what they are,” he said.

“It makes us feel like the U.S. is sending us their crisis,” Lopez said. “This decision is going to put the migrant community in a very vulnerable position.”

Chicago Tribune’s Jeremy Gorner contributed.

In total, there were 64 measles cases during March and April. The last reported case was April 20 and Thursday marks two full incubation periods for measles — 42 days — having passed without any new cases, the report said.

“Chicago … is a city where we welcome between 50 to 60 million people every year. So we must be ready. We must always be ready to go,” said CDPH Commissioner Olusimbo Ige told the Tribune about the outbreak.

Measles spreads through the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes or when a person comes into contact with an infected person’s mucus or saliva, according to state public health information. It is particularly dangerous to babies and young children.

On March 7, public health officials identified the first case of measles in the city since 2019 on the Northwest Side. The next day, officials reported the first positive case in the migrant shelter, where nearly 2,500 people were living in close quarters. It was the city’s largest shelter at the time.

This concerned infectious disease experts, who warned that many migrants may be unvaccinated because of a weak public health infrastructure in their countries of origin. Most Chicagoans are vaccinated against the highly contagious disease — which thrives among unvaccinated populations.

Eventually, 57 cases were confirmed at the shelter, city officials reported.

More than 42,000 migrants have been bused and flown by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to Chicago in about two years from the southern border. Fleeing poverty and violence, they often have acute needs to which the city has struggled to respond. 

Before the outbreak, city officials prioritized their shelter and food needs, and after 60 days of their arrival, Ige said they had the opportunity to receive a comprehensive medical examination.

“Many people do not show up for their appointment. So that was why there was a gap,” Ige said. 

The night of the first detected case, Ige said she and other city health officials mobilized quickly. They went from bed to bed in the shelter, urging roughly 1,000 people who weren’t vaccinated to get their first of two combined measles/mumps/rubella doses. Unvaccinated shelter residents were quarantined and students were told to stay home from school.

“This was a battle that was fought,” Ige said.

Dozens of public health employees worked with community partners around the clock to have difficult conversations with new arrivals, meticulously verify records, conduct contact tracing and check for symptoms. And 99.6% of those who were eligible received the vaccine, according to Ige.

As cases climbed, health officials extended their efforts to the more than 20 shelters then housing migrants, administering over 30,000 doses to date, according to CDPH data. Ige said the city changed its requirements so migrants now receive medical examinations immediately upon arrival as part of the requirements to be placed in a shelter.

Over 42,000 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, have passed through Chicago in close to two years on buses and planes from the southern border. When they arrive, they often have little room to think of anything but how to survive — how to find a house, file their asylum papers and make enough money to feed their children.

Yamin said she understands this feeling. She moved to the United States seven years ago with her husband to study violin performance at DePaul University.

In their home country, they were part of El Sistema, a state-funded music education program in Venezuela that trains hundreds of thousands of musicians across social classes how to play classical music, among other genres.

El Sistema has been bringing music education to vulnerable communities in Venezuela since 1975. Patricia Abdelnour, former deputy director of internal relations of the organization, said it operates in hundreds of small nucleos, or practice groups that provide safe havens and resources at a neighborhood level.

The music program is touted as one of the most successful in Latin America, despite the crisis in Venezuela brought on by the country’s far-left leader and tanking oil industry.

“In a way, when everything else seems to be failing, the only thing that has kept going has been El Sistema,” Abdelnour said.

Yamin joined El Sistema when she was 7 years old and said her participation in classical music gave her a path out of her country in 2017 when tensions and protests against the president were escalating. But she said her adjustment to Chicago was hard.

“At that time, we were so busy studying and working that we actually didn’t give any importance to enjoying music,” she said.

Yamin is now one of 11 participants in the Civic Orchestra of Chicago’s fellowship program, which funds musicians to design and execute an independent project.

She wanted to give the new arrivals — many focused singularly on meeting their own basic needs — the space to “reconnect with themselves” through music.

She coordinated with city officials to find a space inside a shelter and selected eight pieces that combined traditional and classical music styles. The songs were originally meant to be sung, she said, but her former music teacher and Venezuelan cellist German Marcano arranged them for string instruments.

Rachael Cohen, program manager for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Negaunee Music Institute, said the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is currently looking for more ways to interact with the migrant community in Chicago.

“It’s so special that Lina took that initiative. It’s part of her story too,” Cohen said.

Most of the musicians who performed are also from Latin America. Yamin’s husband and fellow violinist Nelson Mendoza, the cellist Omkara Gil and the maracas player Karel Zambrano are from Venezuela. Cuatro player Jose Luis Posada is from Colombia and violist Carlos Lozano is from Mexico. Only the bassist Ben Foerster is from the United States.

The concert started with “Lejania,” a piece composed in 1946 when Venezuelans migrated from the country to big cities.

“More than anything, it’s about melancholy and longing for where you come from,” Yamin said to the audience.

When the music started, a few dozen migrants took videos of the stringed instruments and shakers. Some nodded along.

The second song, “El Norte es una Quimera,” was about a man who moved from Venezuela to New York in the ‘50s and went home after struggling to make it. One song used the familiar sounds of an ice cream seller in Venezuela. Another, “Pajarillo,” combined bits of a traditional Venezuelan dance tune with the classical notes of a fugue.

During the second to last song, “Alma Llanera,” Domarys Acosta, a 37-year-old mother from Venezuela, stood up in her chair and clapped.

Acosta, who worked at a day care in Valencia, Venezuela, left her country in February to make it to Chicago with her husband and two kids. She said she spends her days asking for money on the streets because she has few options, and doesn’t have time to seek out music.

“It lifted my spirits. A mí me subió el ánimo,” she said.

The concert ended with the song “Venezuela” — a slower melody reminding those in attendance of everything they have to be proud of in Venezuela. Some migrants closed their eyes as they listened. 

“It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that pride,” Acosta said. “In my country, we danced all the time.” 

The Venezuelan music tradition is a unique mixture of Indigenous, African and European influences. And the El Sistema program — which has spread classical music to widespread communities — makes it more distinct, said Dr. Pedro Aponte, professor of musicology at James Madison University. 

“We talk about classical music the same way we talk about baseball in this country,” he said.

Yamin lamented that she couldn’t play songs from all genres. But for her, the act of sitting and listening to classical music embodies hope.

And her work was well received. People smiled. Children came up to the stage to hug Yamin afterward.

“!Uno más! One more!” they cheered.

nsalzman@chicagotribune.com

The report released Thursday reveals widespread violations by the state’s law enforcement agencies of an act that attempts to provide greater access to protections for immigrants who are victims of crime or human trafficking.

Amid a migrant crisis in Chicago in which over 42,000 people have arrived in the city in nearly two years sent on buses from the southern border, the report shines a light on an intractable problem: that some will inevitably be victims of crime but won’t rely on police or law enforcement agencies for support because they’re worried they will face trouble with the law for their immigration status.

“They don’t know anything about the U.S. legal system. They don’t know anything about the immigration system. They may come from countries where they can’t trust the police,” said Nicole Hallett, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School, who authored the report.

Hallett said the widespread lack of compliance with the 2019 act — Voices of Immigrant Communities Empowering Survivors — points to the fact that law enforcement agencies in Illinois are decentralized.

“It’s been five years,” she said. “But the fact … that there are still so many agencies that are out of compliance suggests that there’s some sort of breakdown.”

The VOICES Act was passed by the Illinois legislature five years ago and seeks to provide greater access to U and T visa programs. These visas promote immigrants’ cooperation with law enforcement without fear of deportation and allow recipients to apply for lawful permanent residence after three years.

To qualify for a U visa, an applicant must be a victim of a crime within the United States and have suffered substantial physical or mental abuse as a result. U visas cover domestic violence and sexual assault, blackmail and extortion, among other crimes. T visas cover human trafficking.

Immigration advocates and researchers consider these visas essential to ensuring that victims of crime feel comfortable working with law enforcement without being penalized.

They say people who don’t have housing or can’t work legally are particularly vulnerable to trafficking. But there is little to no way to evaluate how many victims there are in any given community, said Erika Asgeirsson, who oversees the Counter-Trafficking Project at the National Immigrant Justice Center.

“Data is really hard to come by … because people don’t necessarily identify as a survivor of human trafficking,” she said.

The act is one of several Illinois laws to protect the rights of immigrants. It mandates law enforcement agencies designate a certifying official to spread information about the U and T visa application process.

That official is supposed to receive training to help the victims understand how to apply, and lead them through the application process. But the law does not specify guidelines about the training, nor does it allocate a funding source.

Additionally, agencies under the act are supposed to submit annual reports about certification forms to the Illinois attorney general’s office. If agencies aren’t complying with requirements, the attorney general is supposed to lead an investigation and can sue if it thinks the agency is in the wrong.

Researchers at the U. of C. set out two years ago to produce a manual for immigrants in Illinois so people could understand how to seek out U and T visas. They quickly discovered that many law enforcement agencies didn’t know about the visas and had never heard of the VOICES Act. So, they decided to do a more formal study about the act’s impact.

The research team contacted 306 state attorney’s offices, sheriff’s offices and police departments. Through hundreds of records and interviews, it became clear that though the act had laudable goals, it remains under-implemented across the state, the researchers said.

Of the near 300 agencies that responded, 42% did not have a designated certifying official, and few had the training, the report states. Just 17% of responding agencies complied with the requirement of making sure crime victims know the act exists, according to the report.

Many agencies seemed confused about the act’s purpose, researchers wrote. They stated they didn’t have immigrants in their area, or at least any who were victims of crime or trafficking. Some were dismissive of the act’s importance, the report said. There had been little communication with the attorney general since the act’s passage, the report stated.

Ultimately, Hallett recommends that each agency have its own written procedure, identify as many places as possible to publicize the act, and receive training from the attorney general, among other steps to ensure there is consistent compliance with the act. But Hallett said even these measures would scratch the surface of what is needed to ensure migrants who are victims of serious crime can get U and T visas.

Luisa Rodriguez, legal clinic coordinator at Centro de Trabajadores Unidos, who helps run a weekly clinic to assist community members with immigration issues and questions — including U and T visa prospects — said she warns people the visa application process is complicated.

She said just the documentation alone is lengthy: a psychiatric evaluation, letters of support from the applicant’s inner circle of family and friends, a statement from the applicant and a certification from the police. It can take months to complete.

“And this is just the time it takes to prepare the application. Community members should be aware that the entire process could take up to 10 years,” she said in a statement to the Tribune.

With more new arrivals in Chicago, many fleeing violence in their countries of origin and in situations of desperation upon arrival, the need for these services is even higher, said Cinthya Gonzalez, an anti-trafficking outreach specialist for the Sheriff’s office’s victim support services unit.

Gonzalez said she has seen more migrants in her program since busing started in 2022.

“My role has changed a little bit working with more migrants and being the only Spanish speaker in my unit,” she said.

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said many of the program’s employees have been victims of trafficking themselves. When asked about the state law, he said he worries about a requirement that puts the onus of care for victims on police officials who don’t have a similar background or understanding to the immigrants seeking help.

“In most departments, it’s going to probably be a very well-meaning police officer who has maybe a modicum of information on the act, but probably very little historical understanding of immigration and trafficking — the ups and downs of that world,” he said.

Representatives from the Chicago Police Department and the Cook County state’s attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

In collaboration with the city, Gonzalez helps lead training for migrants in about six of 17 shelters across the city, she said, an effort that started late last summer. She teaches them where to look for signs and who traffickers might be.

“A lot of them don’t identify at first as victims until after the training,” Gonzalez said. “A lot of times they’re like: ‘Oh my god, that was my situation. I had no idea that was a crime.’”

An earlier version of this story misstated the name of the Sheriff’s office’s human trafficking support program. It is the Sheriff’s office’s victim support services unit. An earlier version of this story misspelled Cinthya Gonzalez’s name.

Heredia, her daughter, and her daughter’s 4-year-old arrived in Chicago in early May. They were at a migrant shelter at the Inn of Chicago for 10 days before being told they had to leave, Heredia said.

“I’m going to live on the street with a baby,” said Heredia’s daughter, Lizbeth. “People could violate her, or do something bad to her,” she said.

The uncertainty this family of three went through this week is consistent with the experiences of dozens of others, who reached out to volunteers for help after being told in meetings with city officials that their shelters would close June 10.

When city officials announced the looming eviction day, it set off a wave of worry and panic among people living in the shelters. Many come with little means, can’t work legally, don’t have family in Chicago and don’t know where to go.

Dozens of migrants interviewed by the Tribune at four migrant shelters around the city say they are unclear about where they will live and what will happen to them on the day of the deadline.

City officials said they have no plans to close shelters on June 10, but provided no other information about how that information was communicated.

“The policy has not changed since the City publicly announced it out on March 15th,” said Cassio Mendoza, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s deputy press secretary.

Because the tens of thousands of migrants coming to Chicago are fleeing political persecution, famine or economic disaster, they carry that trauma with them, according to immigration experts and advocates. They say messaging from the city needs to be especially thoughtful and consistent.

“They say we are going to be put out on the street. It’s like we don’t matter,” said Daibelys Benítez, a 24-year-old from Peru staying at a different migrant shelter, in the West Loop.

Shifts in city strategy

As 41,728 asylum-seekers have passed through Chicago in nearly two years — mostly sent on buses by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott – city officials have had to react quickly. They often have to make game-time decisions to ever-changing situations, with little to no notice for the migrants most affected.

As a result, information — particularly misinformation — can make its way through the migrant community quickly, said Veronica Castro, deputy director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. She partners with community-based organizations that work with migrants in shelters who have experienced this firsthand.

“The city is trying to encourage folks to get to a point where they are able to be self-sufficient,” she said. “We’ve tried our best as the organizations that have been doing that in-between work.”

At the height of migrant shelter operations in January, city officials were housing close to 16,000 migrants in 28 shelters across Chicago. But maintaining shelters is expensive, and Chicago’s migrant response has already cost $372 million, according to city officials.

In March, feeling the crunch, Mayor Johnson enacted a policy dictating migrants can stay in shelters for no more than 60 days unless they meet certain exemptions. City officials issued three 30-day extensions to families staying in shelters with kids registered in school.

The last 30-day extension ends June 10, and hundreds of families with kids will be expected to leave.

They will be brought to the city’s “landing zone” — a parking lot in the West Loop with several large white tents — where if there is space, they can reenter one of the 16 temporary emergency shelters still housing 7,604 asylum seekers.

In short, they will sleep on city-provided warming buses for an indefinite period until future arrangements are made for them — which migrant advocates say is an anxiety-producing loop that is disruptive to assimilation in a new country.

Bleidys Bonolli, 40, said information about reentering the system was not communicated to her.

She said city officials had a meeting Wednesday on each floor of a West Loop shelter and told them the shelter was closing. The news hit everyone with surprise, she said, as she held her 2-year-old on her hip.

“We asked the man who came to talk to us a lot of questions but he didn’t have answers. He said we couldn’t take a recording of the meeting,” she said. “This comes from the president, right?”

Bonolli, who arrived in Chicago two months ago after traveling with her three kids from Colombia, hasn’t been able to find stable work. She said “everyone is worried” inside the shelter. She sees hundreds of families in the same situation.

“I walk around all the time and see people living on the street. This is a rich country with such high potential. They should help indigent people,” she said.

A bad dissemination of information can heighten stress for people in already stressful situations, said Aimee Hilado, a professor, clinician and expert on immigrant trauma at the University of Chicago’s Crown Family School of Social Work.

“These messages (of shelter deadlines) while necessary, are difficult to hear,” she said.

‘Survival mode’

Southwest Collective volunteer Maria Perez, who passes out diapers and baby formula to migrants staying at a shelter on the Lower West Side, said she received a flood of WhatsApp messages over the past week.

“We don’t have anywhere to go with our children. What can I do?” Perez said one mother asked.

“They’re telling us there aren’t any resources for us anymore, and that we need to leave,” wrote another.

Friday morning, Heredia stood outside the Inn of Chicago in Streeterville, recounting how she fled Peru after a group of men entered her home and threatened to kill her family.

They were attacked, she said, pointing at a long scar on her 29-year-old daughter Lizbeth’s chin, the result of someone slashing Lizbeth in the face. She said she couldn’t return to her country and had no idea where she would go.

“A house costs $800 to $900. Where can I get that? I can barely afford to buy myself food,” she said.

Some migrants, however, seemed more hopeful about the announcement.

Anna Barra, a 55-year-old from Venezuela staying at a shelter at the Inn of Chicago said she felt the city’s plans to push people out were good because some people have been relying on city services for months.

“We came here to work, not to ask for help,” Barra said. “I always have faith in God that a door will open.”

U. of C.’s Hilado said clear and consistent messaging could be achieved through hotlines, or consistent follow-up meetings with migrants to provide clarification after an announcement is made.

Migration shakes a person’s physical and emotional security, according to Hilado. Migrants who make it to Chicago are in “survival mode,” she said.

“And when you’re told you now will not have a roof over your head, it just exacerbates those feelings of physical and emotional insecurity,” she said. “That fear is real, because it’s a genuine threat to their survival.”

nsalzman@chicagotribune.com

A FBI spokeswoman said a warrant was executed but provided no further information.

“There is currently no known threat to public safety at this time,” the spokeswoman said.

A law enforcement source said the raid stemmed from an ongoing gang violence investigation. No charges have been made public as of Thursday afternoon.

Thursday morning, neighbors emerged from their houses to watch more than two dozen FBI officers wearing camouflage circle a house on foot. Agents used flash bangs prior to entry, according to Ald. Andre Vasquez, 40th, who said in a news release that the local Chicago police district was not informed before the FBI action.

An armored vehicle and two SUVs were on the street in front of a two-story beige-colored home in the 2200 block of West Farragut Avenue in Lincoln Square. A front window was smashed.

At one point, a woman and baby were led into the backyard by law enforcement officers, who remained on the scene to gather more evidence.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or arrests.

“It is still like a dream,” said Zofia Lecznar, who lives on the raided property. Lecznar, 76, said she woke up about 8 a.m. to FBI agents outside her house.

The morning’s events surprised her, but she said she was recovering. “I don’t know what’s happening,” Lecznar, said as she sat on the steps of a nearby house, petting and kissing her dog, Angel. “They say somebody’s going to tell us.”

Please check back for updates.