SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – State officials are discussing what to do with an influx of migrants coming to Illinois from other states.
The discussion came from an annual emergency conference in Springfield. During the conference last year, officials began to hear of buses of migrants coming in from Texas.
Illinois Emergency Management Agency Director Alicia Tate-Nadeau says it was hard to get a lot of details at first.
“We still don’t get good information as far as breakdown is concerned; male, female. But what we will get is, we can identify 52 packs coming in from El Paso or a different place of origin, and an estimated time of arrival,” Tate-Nadeau said.
Tate-Nadeau says they started to try and provide basic needs to the migrants once they arrived.
“Many of the people that are arriving to us had been traveling for months at a time,” said Tate-Nadeau. “So shoes were a big thing. We originally started this out in the September time frame. But as we moved into the winter months, we had to make sure we gave them winter clothing also.”
The city of Chicago used temporary housing locations, such as vacant schools, hotels, and park district buildings. Community organizations provided Spanish interpreters. The State Department of Public Health also monitored potential chickenpox outbreaks.
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