Chicago begins to impound ‘rogue’ migrant buses under new penalties
The city of Chicago impounded a “rogue bus” from Texas that was attempting to drop off 49 migrants at the city’s designated landing zone Wednesday night.
The impoundment occurred hours after the City Council approved an ordinance adding harsher penalties for bus owners whose vehicles violate restrictions governing unscheduled buses.
Under the revised rules, buses face “seizure and impoundment” for unloading passengers without a permit or outside of approved hours and locations. Violators will also be subject to $3,000 fines, plus towing and storage fees.
City officials hope the tougher penalties and enforcement efforts hold bus owners accountable to rules the city implemented in mid-November seeking to rein in chaotic bus arrivals from the southern border. The rules required dropoffs to occur on weekdays between 8 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. The city also limited bus arrivals to two per hour and designated the West Loop’s 800 S. Desplaines St. as the location to unload passengers.
The new penalties passed Wednesday are “an escalation,” said Cristina Pacione-Zayas, Mayor Brandan Johnson’s deputy chief of staff. All recent migrant-carrying buses have violated the November policy by not getting required approval before arriving, she said. The buses’ owners have received notices to appear in courts to receive fines, she added.
“Since we have passed that original ordinance, every single bus has been in violation because none of them have filled out the online form for a permit 48 hours in advance to be approved,” she said.
A Chicago Department of Transportation spokesperson confirmed Thursday the department had not received any applications from unscheduled intercity buses.
The lack of coordination from unscheduled buses has grown concerning, Pacione-Zayas said. Earlier this week, bus drivers dropped a group of migrants off on the side of Mannheim Road, leaving the newly arrived people unprepared to walk outside in the middle of winter, she said.
“That obviously puts people in harm’s way,” Pacione-Zayas said. “The overall purpose of this is so that we can have an organized and predictive process that ensures that people are safe, first and foremost.”
The new penalties aim to add safety for arriving migrants, the mayor’s deputy chief of staff said. She declined to predict how the tougher policy might affect how many buses and migrants arrive in Chicago.
“It’s so hard to tell,” Pacione-Zayas said. “It’s a very fluid situation. We don’t have control over what happens at the border.”
Two buses were expected to arrive Thursday, according to the Office of Emergency Management and Communications. In recent weeks, bus companies have tried to skirt safety provisions, according to a city statement shared by OEMC spokesperson Mary May.
“Buses have attempted to drop new arrivals in the middle of traffic, on random street corners, and at O’Hare Airport,” the statement said.
Some bus companies have begun to drop migrants in nearby municipalities like Rosemont, Cicero and Schiller Park “to skirt the law,” though many affected locales are now passing similar ordinances to discourage bus companies from unloading migrants without coordination, the statement said.
Cicero approved a measure to fine bus companies $750 per person for letting out homeless migrants, while Rosemont’s Village Board also approved a stricter ordinance regulating unscheduled buses Monday.
In Chicago, the first bus impoundment follows the Johnson administration’s recent efforts to sue the operators of what it calls “rogue buses.”
The effort to crackdown on transportation companies included at least 55 lawsuits filed between mid-November and early December. The lawsuits affected 77 buses, roughly as many as the city says arrived during the period.
A delegation from the mayor’s office met with officials at the southern border in mid-October to attempt to improve coordination from buses arriving at any time, day or night, with little to no warning.
Since migrant buses first arrived in Chicago in August 2022, the number of bus arrivals has ebbed and flowed. The number of buses arriving now far outpaces the amount arriving at the same time last year, putting mounting pressure on city leaders to house newcomers as winter approaches and shelters remain filled.
Chicago received 102 buses carrying asylum-seekers from Nov. 1 to Dec. 6, according to the OEMC. Eight buses arrived during the same time span in 2022. The city has received 30 buses in the past week.