Community leaders are getting ready to expand an emergency shelter for migrants in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood.
“This is some of the stuff that they’ve been working on,” Ald. Byron Sigcho Lopez, of the city's 25th Ward, as he showed NBC Chicago around the new space to house migrants arriving from Texas.
The alderman said the community came together to turn the warehouse into a makeshift shelter. The second floor is slated to open as a shelter on Monday.
“More people are coming, and we just don’t know how many,” he said. “So it is our goal that we are prepared.”
New pictures shared with NBC 5 show the reality and desperation at the U.S.-Mexico border with many families camping out.
“Title 42 ended, but we are not celebrating because in its place we have new rules that create new obstacles and punishments,” said Mary Meg McCarthy, executive director of the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago.
Her organization was part of a delegation that traveled to the southern border to see the problem firsthand.
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“We can not allow this to be our system,” she said. “People are waiting to come into the U.S., and they are being denied through protections.”
As thousands hope to start a new life in America, some non-profits providing legal services for asylum seekers say there is a shortage of immigration attorneys—a problem they have been facing for years.
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“This is very challenging for a pro bono attorney to do given often times these applications can take years,” said Ere Rendon, vice president of immigrant justice with the Resurrection Project.
Meanwhile, at the shelter in Pilsen, donations continue to pour in, and volunteers continue to step up.
“I understand the situation,” said volunteer Marybel Martinez. “I’m a mother so I worry for that—my heart is breaking when I see children.”
Sigcho-Lopez is calling on Congress to act now and address what he called a humanitarian crisis.
“Politicians have been playing games with people’s lives for so long that they forgot we are human beings,” he said.
The alderman said community leaders have already identified three other sites to house migrants, including two churches.
