CHICAGO - Migrants were flown to Chicago from Texas on a chartered flight Tuesday night in the state’s latest effort to ship people to the sanctuary city after buses carrying migrants have been penalized.
The city did not receive notice prior to their arrival and has had no communication with Texas officials, according to Mayor Brandon Johnson’s spokesperson Ronnie Reese. Reese said he wasn’t sure how the city would respond.
Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesman for Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, said in a statement to the Tribune the migrants had signed consent waivers available in multiple languages upon boarding the flight.
“Until President Biden steps up and does his job to secure the border, Texas will continue taking historic action to help our local partners respond to this Biden-made crisis,” Mahaleris said in the statement.
Mahaleris cited Biden flying migrants across the country as justification for the plane sent Tuesday night. Texas sent flights to Chicago after Johnson started “targeting migrant buses from Texas,” according to Mahaleris. He said the mayor is “failing to live up to his city’s ‘Welcoming City’ ordinance.”
Mahaleris said 120 passengers were aboard the flight, but he did not respond to questions how much the chartered flight cost or who paid for it.
According to Chicago officials, police at O’Hare International Airport received a call around 7:15 p.m. that a private plane chartered by the Texas Division of Emergency Management landed and left about 100 asylum-seekers at Signature Flight, officials said in a statement to the Tribune.
Two unidentified individuals who flew on the plane reportedly fled Signature Flight and left the scene in an Uber prior to the arrival of police, officials said.
The plane’s arrival at O’Hare was first reported by WTTW.
Jose Orellana, 38, from Barquisimeto, Venezuela — one of the migrants who arrived last night on the private plane — sat on a metal bench at O’Hare Wednesday afternoon.
“On our journey here from Venezuela, we thought that we’d take a bus,” he said in Spanish. “But when we were trying to buy a bus ticket, they told us we should go to the airport instead.”
Orellana said they didn’t have any connections in the United States, and had heard there were shelter options and resources available in Chicago. He was surprised by the comfort of their journey to Chicago in the private plane.
His wife Anna Vaccaro has a cancerous tumor in her head, he said, and his 8-year-old son Gianfranco Matute has leukemia. They were both brought immediately to a hospital Tuesday night from the airport to receive medical care.
“We were so grateful to arrive by plane, because taking two buses would have been hard,” Orellana said. His wife and son were discharged were from the hospital and sent back to the airport at 5 a.m. Wednesday, he said.
The city reported Wednesday that 607 buses have arrived in Chicago from border cities since Aug. 31, 2022. Migrants have also arrived to the sanctuary city with the help of plane tickets purchased by Catholic Charities in San Antonio.
On Saturday, Johnson’s deputy chief of staff Cristina Pacione-Zayas told the Tribune that Texas had halted all communication with the city of Chicago following the city’s harsher penalties for bus owners whose vehicles violate rules to rein in chaotic bus arrivals.
On Dec. 13, City Council approved an ordinance that buses would face “seizure and impoundment” for unloading passengers without a permit or outside of approved hours and locations. Violators are subject to $3,000 fines, plus towing and storage fees.
That same day, the city impounded a “rogue bus” trying to drop off 29 migrants at the approved landing zone in the West Loop at 800 S. Desplaines St.
To dodge penalties and fines, bus drivers have dropped migrants off in Indiana and given them Amtrak tickets or Metra cards to get downtown, according to city officials.
Jose Ramirez, 35, from Venezuela, sat next to Orellana at the airport Wednesday afternoon, eating a sandwich that shelter staff at the airport passed out for snack. He said he arrived with the help of a ticket purchased by Catholic Charities.
“We heard at the shelter where we were staying in Texas that when buses drop people off in Chicago, they leave them on the side of the road. Then they buy them a train ticket,” he said.
Reese said based on the buses arriving from Texas without coordination, “it would not be surprising” if Chicago received more chartered flights from southern border cities.
“I think what they’re doing is chaotic,” said Reese. “But we’ll continue to meet the moment and provide support for individuals as they arrive.”
According to city data Wednesday, there are now 296 migrants staying at O’Hare waiting for shelter placement. The city has received more 26,100 migrants since the first buses were sent in 2022.
Orellana and his family sat on the floor in the airport, eating food, waiting. Vaccaro touched the tumor in her head and grimaced.
“We understand that the shelter system is full. That someone has to leave for us to enter,” Orellana said.
Chicago Tribune’s Alice Yin contributed.