ROCKFORD, Ill. (WLS) – Eight migrant buses were in route to Chicago Sunday morning after a plane from Texas carrying over 300 asylum seekers landed in Rockford overnight.

The migrants were flown from Texas to Illinois in a jumbo jet, landing at Rockford International Airport, Rockford ABC affiliate WTVO reported.

The migrant crisis Chicago has been grappling with has once again made its way to the suburbs.

After the plane landed, the passengers were reportedly immediately put on buses heading to Chicago’s landing zone near West Polk Street and South Desplaines Street.

The City of Chicago issued a statement Sunday afternoon, saying that city officials had been notified by Rockford of the plane’s arrival. Eight buses from Rockford have dropped off migrants in multiple suburbs on the way to Chicago, but they have not yet reached Chicago, city officials said.

  • Stamau123@lemmy.worldOP
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    1 year ago

    Seems Texas migrant policy really is the homeless episode of South Park. Thankfully Chicago thought to actually do something useful when they were informed they were coming, and didn’t just send the buses to Denver.

    • misophist@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      That’s also how small conservative towns and churches in Texas handle their homeless. They put them on busses and send them to the larger cities in Texas.

      • doppelgangmember@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Which wasn’t this literally just debated as human trafficking violations with DeSantis and Florida (or maybe TX idek anymore)…

        • misophist@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Yeah, one one hand, I don’t get how this isn’t straight-up human trafficking. On the other hand, I have a feeling Chicago and New York and all those other places are helping these people in a much more compassionate manner than they would have been handled in Texas, so there’s at least that. I don’t know what a good answer is to the whole situation, but at the moment, asylum seekers are getting better help than if they were thrown in Texas border cages.

          • doppelgangmember@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            It’s such a catch-22

            If you’re homeless and not receiving any housing assistance anywhere. Then, the warmer climate of Texas would be preferable for Winter. But we see how it’s going so…

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    A little bit of human trafficking just to rile your base is never a bad thing, eh?

  • MNByChoice@midwest.social
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    1 year ago

    Maybe we need actual immigration handling? Like great big loads to judges and social welfare agents. Get all immigrants processed, setup with housing, and a supportive community within a short period of time.

    Do the same for Americans. Throw in a UBI, health care, and life skill coaching.

      • DeadDjembe@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        When you make false promises so the immigrants board the plane or bus, then schedule their asylum hearing across the country, it is very much playing with people’s lives.

          • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            600 million in federal aid was set up to assist with migration in 2023. $770 million is what ended up being dispersed. (An extra 170 million added in). If the aid isn’t enough Texas should request more aid.

            Everyone is already pitching in. That was started under the Obama/Biden administration if I am not mistaken. Handling a situation responsibly. Putting up barbed wire in rivers and manipulating people and shipping them across the country with no notice isn’t responsible. If they wanted responsible they would have reached out to those states and set up a planned process.

            Now on to the part that should be fully supported by everyone unless they are just preaching hate. Updating immigration law. The sooner they are documented and working the sooner they are paying taxes. Incoming migrants are money to be made. If we have a good immigration system we fast track their ability to make the country more money quicker (more than covering all those costs we invested)

      • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Non-border states also have undocumented immigrants. What are you talking about? The farther they travel from the border, the better the pay.

      • zbyte64@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        Or maybe we should give these people a choice in where they go?

        This is just throwing them around like a football.

      • Liz@midwest.social
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        1 year ago

        Texas does have a more developed system for handling asylum seekers, so yeah.

        • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Does it? Seems like they system boils down to:

          Put them in cages Ship them to another city/state Kill them Use them as cheap disposable labor

          • Liz@midwest.social
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            1 year ago

            If it snows in Texas do we point to Illinois and say then that Texans should be able to adapt fast enough because the Illini can handle a problem they’re used to?

              • Liz@midwest.social
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                Both are unexpected events for which the affected area isn’t equipped but the other is. The main difference here is that people are responsible for dumping these humans into an area that’s not equipped to handle them, whereas no one is responsible for snow.

              • Liz@midwest.social
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                Then those people are wrong and don’t understand how dealing with snow or asylum seekers works.

  • 000@fuck.markets
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    When are we going to start seeing criminal prosecution for these antics? They are coercing these immigrants onto a bus and giving them no idea where they’ll wind up- seems like a textbook case of kidnapping. Maybe start slapping some of the politicians with felonies and this will stop.

  • ghostdoggtv@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Hey since the border officials in those other states aren’t doing their jobs, we should stop paying them and give their money to their victims

    • TheFriar@lemm.ee
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      I was thinking, this is so obviously a stunt by Abbott to get the blue states to bitch about immigration. Why don’t these blue state reps say, hey, we get it. It’s a financial burden to house immigrants. Why don’t we all lighten the load and skim $1b off the defense budget?

      Why won’t they?

      Well…I guess it’s because theyre all neoliberal fuckwits that love that defense budget like it’s 2001.

      And I don’t think this is because border officials aren’t doing their jobs. Their jobs isn’t to bash and deter, but wrangle once someone new comes in. Americans love paperwork.

  • Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca
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    Why are refugees and illegal immigrants a state responsibility?

    Shouldn’t it be handled federally? Why is there no department for handling this sort of thing instead of Texas having supreme decision making in their fates?

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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      Why is there no department for handling this sort of thing instead of Texas having supreme decision making in their fates?

      The federal government gives a lot of money to Texas for exactly this. The federal government basically goes “eh, it’s not worth it for us to try to do, since the state will be able to respond more agilely than the feds. So we’ll give them the money we would spend, and let them figure it out.”

      The issue is that Greg Abbott is a greedy little man child who wants m̶̡̢̢̻̝͓̩̗̜̰͙̣͔͚̯̮̮̭͍̒͂̃̉̂́̏͒̇͐́͜͜͝ͅǫ̵̨̡̡̧̥̭̻̣̗͈̳͖͚͚̩͍̹̝̗̰̜̜͙͇͐͐̍́́̽͆͗̇͗̔̚̚͝͝͠r̷̨̦̭͔̲̖̠͍͓̞̺̗̺̼͉̓̿̊̌̈́͆̎̃̄̍͂͜͜ͅȩ̵̡̢̫̳͎͕͙̻͙͈̩͕̰̳͚͚̝͍̲̠̟̫͖̮̖̞͉̾̑͆͆͜ money.

      • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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        The federal government doesn’t have the rights to run said programs I would assume. A good example is FEMA. When a hurricane comes in FEMA cannot just go into a state and start doing what is needed, it violates the states rights. So FEMA has to follow the orders of the state and drop supplies and aid wherever directed by the state. A good example of this falling apart was when FEMA shipped aid to Puerto Rico after hurricane Maria I think it was. There was not a good system of distribution set up and FEMA had no rights to take over in said actions. So a lot of water and other supplies quite literally got piled up on the side of runways and left there for months and months while the people needed it.

    • spyd3r@sh.itjust.works
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      This is a problem no one actually wants to fix, all political sides and their corporate owners benefit from a massive influx of migrants illegal or otherwise. The only people paying the price is the working class, which the ruling class has no problems shitting all over.

  • The Barto@sh.itjust.works
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    Yeah, but when I sneak a bunch of illegal immigrants into the country it’s “hUmAn TrAfFiCkInG¡”.

  • rivermonster@lemmy.world
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    Could anyone with academic or professionally relevant expertise explain how this is legal? I’m confused on what grounds and how a state could interfere with immigration, which is a federal issue, much less interstate transportation (another federal purview) actions regarding it.

    Is the Biden administration just not enforcing the federal jurisdiction and allowing it by ignoring them violating the constitution? Or is it there’re no laws around this even though the constitution doesn’t allow states to do this? Whatever the reason, I’m utterly confused about why it is being tolerated.

  • squidman@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Republicans: there’s never any money to help people, but there’s always money for racism.

    • bluGill@kbin.social
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      They can’t. several supreme court cases already give aeright to travel. Immigration belongs to the federal government

      • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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        Somebody should explain that to all the Texas towns trying to ban traveling out of state for an abortion.

      • PriorityMotif@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Just put toll booths in at the border to Illinois from all directions. It’s almost impossible to travel across the u.s. without going through Illinois or going way out of your way to avoid it.

        • JigglySackles@lemmy.world
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          I’ve been all over the US and pretty sure I’ve never been in or through Illinois with exception to flights. I think you’re greatly overestimating the size of Illinois and underestimating available options of US driving travel.

          • PriorityMotif@lemmy.world
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            If you want to go around you’ll have to drive through Kentucky or through the Michigan UP Mackinaw bridge or through Canada. There’s a lot of freight that goes through Illinois as well as coming in/going out from ORD.

            • JigglySackles@lemmy.world
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              Tons of freight moves along i40 as well. It never approaches Illinois. You might be familiar with the traversal lanes up there, but there are several main thoroughfares south of there. 40, 20 and 10 all have tons of e/w traffic. All are south of Illinois. It’s not that hard to avoid one medium sized state.

        • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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          Banning travel to other states for an abortion is also very clearly unconstitutional. There are still pretty big differences between restricting travel from specific states for something that is completely legal (driving a bus) and restricting your citizens from going outside your state to do something that is illegal in your state (abortion). One is a matter of jurisdiction while the other is a matter of travel restriction.

      • Kbobabob@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You know this is going to back fire on Texas, states might require permits or taxes to travel to and from a state.

        I’m just waiting for the /s

        • QuaternionsRock@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Ha-ha.

          As I understand it, this is a suggestion that it would be okay for states to take blatantly unconstitutional action in retribution for the likely criminal acts of the Texas state government. I’m hoping that I’m wrong, because that’s nuts.

          • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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            blatantly unconstitutional action

            In this economy? Surely no one would do that, lest they face the consequences.

            Consequences.

            Consequences… why does that word seem so strange now?

            • QuaternionsRock@lemmy.world
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              Consequences… why does that word seem so strange now?

              We are most certainly like-minded in that regard.

              If unconstitutional action is something that Democrats and Republicans see as necessary, authoritarianism has won, and everyone/everything else has lost.

              • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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                Meh, it’s a comment from an anonymous rando on the Internet. I’m a lot more concerned with the fact that the state of Texas is in the human trafficking business than OP’s comment.