Two busloads of asylum-seekers were dropped off at the Blue Line Forest Park terminal in December, and the village quietly put a little-known plan of action into place.
Mayor Rory Hoskins told the Review that under the plan, the village is supposed to work with the Salvation Army and Pace suburban bus system to get migrants sheltered. It has no plans to provide shelter themselves.
But as of Jan. 2, he said, there have been two instances of buses dropping off migrants at the Forest Park terminal. On Dec. 15, the migrants got on the ‘L’ and the bus left before the village could respond. On Dec. 30, Forest Park police officers escorted the bus to the designated city drop-off point.
Hoskins said that in November, the village staff developed a policy for dealing with migrant arrivals. If the migrants are left stranded in Forest Park, the village will contact Pace to transport them to Salvation Army facilities that can provide emergency shelter and other services. Hoskins said that the village is “considering an ordinance that would mirror those passed in neighboring municipalities,” but neither confirmed nor explicitly denied that the council might vote on something like this at the regularly scheduled Jan. 8 meeting.
Since the summer of 2022, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has been busing asylum-seekers, most of whom come from Central and South American countries, to several cities, including Chicago. As the city began seizing and impounding buses that arrived without warning and outside the specifically designated times and locations, the buses started dropping off migrants in the suburbs and even exurbs like Kankakee, Ill. This, in turn, led many suburbs, including Oak Park, River Forest and Broadview, to impose their own restrictions.
In mid-November, Chicago put in new restrictions, requiring that the drop-offs only happen at the Maxwell Street Market area on weekdays between 8 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., and limited it to two buses per hour. An ordinance approved in early December 2023 gave enforcement some teeth, allowing the city to impound the buses that don’t follow the rules.
Since then, there have been multiple instances of buses dropping off migrants in the suburbs, leading to another wave of restrictions. On Dec. 7, Oak Park adopted a policy stating that buses would not be allowed to drop off passengers – instead, they will be directed to the Chicago drop-off zone. On Dec. 29, River Forest village president Cathy Adduci signed an executive order requiring the buses to apply for a permit to make the drop-off, with the violators fined at $750 per passenger.
On Dec. 16 at around 4 p.m., a bus attempted to drop off migrants in River Forest, at section of Lake Street west of Harlem Avenue. The area is within walking distance of the Harlem/Lake Green Line ‘L’ station and the Oak Park Metra station, the spot where Oak Park, River Forest and Forest Park borders converge. Photos shared with the Review coach bus with the logo of the Houston, Texas based Western Motor Coach company stopped on the westbound, Forest Preserve side of Lake Street, with River Forest Police Department cars surrounding them. The police eventually escorted the bus out of the area.
The Forest Park terminal is an attractive drop-off point because it is one of only two ‘L’ lines that operates around the clock, and it has a turnaround for Pace buses.
Hoskins told the Review that on Dec. 15, 2023, CTA security notified the village that a bus dropped off passengers that “appeared to be migrants.” By the time the police arrived, the passengers had already boarded the ‘L’ and left. The security guards told the police officers that the migrants had Ventra cards.
“They all had Ventra cards — they went straight to the city,” Hoskins said.
On Dec. 30, another bus tried to drop off “40 to 50” migrants at the terminal, he said, but this time, they didn’t get very far, and the bus was still on the scene. A Texas Division of the Emergency Management staff member was with the bus, and she told the officers that she had Metra passes – which don’t work on the CTA and Pace.
Hoskins said that the officers told the bus driver and the TDEM official where the migrants had to be dropped off. Everyone re-boarded the bus without incident, and the police escorted it to the Chicago drop-off site.
The mayor said that he let the Chicago Office of Emergency Management and Cook County Department of Emergency Management and Regional Security know about the Dec. 30 incident, and he talked to the CTA officials about the Dec. 15 incident.
Hoskins said: “In the event a large busload of migrants” gets dropped off and the bus leaves, Forest Park will contact Pace to transport them to the Salvation Army facilities nearby. The village is working with that organization, he said, because it “provides housing on a larger scale to some of the migrant populations.”
The Forest Park terminal is a major hub for Pace bus routes serving the west suburbs and beyond, and there is room to stage multiple buses, if necessary. The suburban transit agency has several routes operating at night, most of which serve shift workers at USP and Amazon facilities, so it can theoretically send in drivers and buses no matter what time of day the intercity buses arrive.
According to Salvation Army website, the closest Salvation Army facility that offers emergency housing is located in Chicago’s West Humboldt Park neighborhood.
Hoskins also said that the village has “pretty close communications with Oak Park and the surrounding villages.”
“I’m happy that the staff is adapting to change in our area, this part of the [Proviso] township and the challenges that we have to face,” he added.
Village restricts transport of asylum seekers
Forest Park is requiring any bus operators that plan to drop off asylum-seekers at Forest Park to register ahead of time – otherwise, they will face thousands of dollars in fines.
The ordinance unanimously adopted by the village council Jan. 8 sets for the first time a clear policy for how to respond to bus companies that are being chartered by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to transport migrants in the United States. With Chicago clamping down on buses, the drop-offs have increasingly been happening in nearby areas. River Forest and Oak Park were among the many neighboring suburbs that adopted similar restrictions.
The new ordinance comes after recent incidents of buses dropping off migrants at the Forest Park terminal. Forest Park mayor Rory Hoskins said that they wanted to put together something that’s consistent with their neighbors.
The new ordinance requires that any buses that transport passengers but don’t follow a regular schedule must submit the application to the Forest Park Police Chief in order to be able to drop off passengers anywhere in the village. The application must be submitted at least five days ahead of time, and must include “the full name, full address, and telephone numbers” of the applicant – which can be the bus company owner, the operator or the driver – and the entity that paid them to transport passengers. The application also has to include the driver’s cell phone number.
The applicants need to also provide the full names and copies of government identifications of every passenger on the bus. The buses would only be able to drop off passengers on weekdays between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., and the address of a drop-off point must be included in the application. The application must also include the addresses and locations from which the passengers will be picked up.
Once the police chief gets the application, he has up to four days to either approve or reject it.
Any applicant who doesn’t follow the ordinance, or lies on the application, can be fined anywhere between $300 and $750 per transported passenger per day.
During the Jan. 8 meeting, Hoskins said that the village’s overall goal will be to steer migrants toward Chicago.
“This will allow us to work with our neighboring communities to direct buses dropping off migrants to the City of Chicago’s designated [drop-off] space,” he said.