Chicago officials have signed a nearly $30 million contract with a private security firm to relocate migrants seeking asylum from police stations and the city’s two airports to winterized camps with massive tents before cold weather arrives, following the lead of New York City’s use of communal tents for migrants.
GardaWorld Federal Services and a subsidiary sealed the one-year $29.4 million deal with Chicago on Sept. 12. That was less than a week after Mayor Brandon Johnson announced plans to move about 1,600 migrants to a network of newly erected tent cities across the city. He said the relocations will occur “before the weather begins to shift and change.”
Many of those migrants have been living temporarily inside Chicago police stations or at O’Hare or Midway airports.
The contract with GardaWorld states that its purpose is “to allow the City to purchase from the State Contract temporary housing solutions and related services … to provide critical services to asylum seekers.”
It does not identify the specific sites for the camps and none have been chosen, said Johnson’s press secretary, Ronnie Reese. The contract also makes no mention of a specific timetable for erecting the tents.
“It’s got to be done pretty quickly if it’s gonna get done before the weather breaks,” Reese told the Chicago Sun-Times. “The goal is to decompress the police stations as soon as possible. We know that’s not sustainable.”
Company building tents for migrants also bussed them to city
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The plan was made without debate in City Council, a move that did not sit even with allies of the mayor, including Ald. Andre Vasquez, who is Johnson’s point person on migrant issues on the City Council.
“I do recognize that an executive branch has the latitude to be agile in a moment of crisis, so I get why some of this stuff moves quickly, but clearly we all have questions,” Vasquez said.
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Some of those questions surround the company’s role in the crisis. GardaWorld is not only contracted to build the tents, but has also been responsible for bussing migrants to the city, a conflict that has raised eyebrows, including those of Ald. Ray Lopez.
“I don’t think we know enough about any of this situation, least of all who we are getting in bed with to address the migrant situation,” Lopez said. "Just finding out that we’re paying the same company responsible for shipping them here, to now be in charge of taking care of them, is like having the fireman both set the fire and extinguish it at the same time.”
Questions also arose due to the company’s failure to secure a contract in Denver, which pulled out of the deal due to “concerns (that grew) about the international company’s history of alleged abuses and mistreatment, as well as its lack of experience in sheltering migrants,” according to a statement.
Cristina Pacione-Zayas, Johnson’s chief of staff, said GardaWorld is a “preferred state contractor,” and that they underwent training on operations and procedures in the aftermath of that decision by the city of Denver.
“The state is good with it. We understand what those concerns were and how they were addressed, then we are good to be proceeding as well,” she said.
GardaWorld signed a similar $125 million contract with the state of Illinois late last year, though so far very little has been paid out, the Chicago Tribune reported. The company has also drawn criticism around its treatment of migrants, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
What the tents are set to include
According to terms of the contract, GardaWorld will be responsible for providing security, three meals a day, daily child care, van transports to school and doctors’ appointments, and laundry services.
The soft-material “yurt” structures would each fit 12 cots and be outfitted with fire extinguishers and portable restrooms, with makeshift kitchens to be set up nearby, the contract showed.
The tents are supposed to be capable of withstanding colder temperatures, maintaining 70-degree temperatures even when the mercury outside is 40 degrees. Ald. Lopez however expressed skepticism that the solution will stand up to Chicago’s winters.
“The fact that we’re spending $29 million on a tent city solution that probably won’t even function in subzero weather, Chicago style, is just amazing to me,” Lopez said.
As of Thursday morning, there are a total of 8,307 migrants in city shelters, with nearly 2,000 awaiting placement.
Most of Chicago’s 14,000 migrants who have arrived seeking asylum since August 2022 have come from Texas, some under the direction of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.
Below are renderings of what the tents could look like, provided by the City of Chicago:
