The Chicago City Council voted Wednesday to allocate more than $50 million from a budget surplus to provide emergency humanitarian aid and housing to the thousands of asylum seekers who have been sent to Chicago since last August by Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott. This is Chicago Alderperson Andre Vasquez.

Andre Vasquez: “So, we’ve got around 10,000 asylum seekers coming from South and Central America. Close to a thousand of them are currently living in our police stations, right? We’re talking sleeping on mats on the floor, sometimes on the floor directly. And we’re talking women, children, like whole families. So, the city currently is looking to see how it’s going to tackle it, at a time where we don’t have the funding and resources from the state and federal government to really adequately address it.”