The Democratic National Convention will likely be spared from mass arrivals of migrants who have been bussed into Chicago from the Texas border despite a city official's claim that the city is bracing for tens of thousands of migrants come August.
Chicago's Deputy Mayor for Immigration, Beatriz Ponce de Leon, claimed in July that the city was looking at "20,000 to 25,000 people arriving" ahead of and during the DNC, Axios reported last month.
Although three-term Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) touted during his speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last month that "buses will continue to roll until we finally secure our border," Texas has not documented any migrants taken to Chicago since June 14, when operations flatlined, according to a Washington Examiner analysis of state data.
From August 2022 through July 2023, about 4,300 migrants were bussed to Chicago. Arrivals ticked up quickly last fall, and the state reached 17,200 by November.
By New Year's, more than 28,000 migrants had arrived in Chicago on the Texas buses.
The numbers continued to rise at a slower rate than the previous year in early 2024. By April, arrivals topped 34,000 but flatlined by early June after topping 36,000 .
In each of the past seven weeks, the state has not disclosed transporting migrants to Chicago.
“We’re not seeing so many buses. In fact, we haven’t seen a bus for a month and a half coming to Chicago,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) recently told reporters.
The sudden slowdown in migrants arriving by bus in Chicago comes amid a significant drop in the number of migrants getting arrested at the southern border. Since December 2023, illegal immigration arrests have dropped from 250,000 that month to below 60,000 in July.
The overall decline in arrests and releases of immigrants at the border into the United States has meant a lower demand for public transportation, including state-funded buses to sanctuary cities such as Chicago.
This means Chicago has been able to return to somewhat normal operations. The city peaked in January 2024, with 15,000 migrants housed across 28 emergency shelters citywide.
As of June, fewer than 6,000 migrants were spread across 17 shelters.
The Texas bussing effort commenced in 2022 when Abbott's office started providing free rides for migrants to New York City and Washington, D.C. In August 2022, it expanded the operation to include Chicago.
"With its 'Welcoming City Ordinance' making it a sanctuary city, Chicago will not deny city services to individuals based on their immigration status," the governor's office said in a 2022 announcement .
Abbott's office would not immediately provide the Washington Examiner with an estimate of the costs of bussing migrants to Chicago over the past two years.
Texas has, however, touted an 85% decline in migrant arrests along the state's border with Mexico since it stepped up security in early 2021. Since then, migrants have increasingly gone further west to enter the U.S. in states such as California and Arizona.
A New York Times report from July stated that Texas had spent $230 million on bussing roughly 120,000 migrants to all six cities.
The bussing operation was in addition to other statewide enhancements to respond to the number of illegal immigrants apprehended attempting to enter the country from Mexico. Abbott first took action in March 2021 and deployed 10,000 state police and military to the state's border to assist federal authorities under "Operation Lone Star."
The buses offered migrants rides to certain cities that self-identified as "sanctuary" zones for migrants, typically Democratic Party-run jurisdictions that do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
Many migrants who are released into the U.S. by the Border Patrol after crossing the border illegally are on humanitarian parole, while others are given documents mandating they appear in immigration court.
Migrants must volunteer to board the buses and sign waivers. They are not in federal, state, or local custody during their transport.
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Officials in receiving cities have lamented that Texas has not given a warning before dropping dozens to hundreds of people off in their cities daily.
Democratic Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Pritzker, the Harris campaign, and the DNC did not provide comment.
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