Community leaders and former gang members are sounding the alarm, warning that the influx of migrants could escalate into violence, with Venezuelan criminals reportedly taking over shelters and apartment buildings. “It is impossible to release gang members and criminals into our country through the borders and broken walls and infiltrate them in our community that’s already impoverished and broken,” former gang member Tyrone Muhammad told The New York Post in a recent interview. “When the black gangs here get fed up with the illegalities and criminal activities of these migrants or non-citizens, the city of Chicago is going to go up in flames and there will be nothing the National Guard or the government can do about it when the bloodshed hits the streets,” he added. “It’ll be blacks against migrants.” Tensions have simmered since Texas Gov. Greg Abbott began busing migrants to Chicago two years ago as part of an effort to ease pressure on border cities overwhelmed by the migrant crisis. “Our voices are not valued nor heard,” Genesis Young, a lifelong Chicagoan who lives near Wadsworth, told The Associated Press (AP) earlier this year. Since August 2022, Chicago has welcomed more than 48,000 migrants, according to a city dashboard. City officials have spent over $300 million in municipal, state, and federal funds to provide housing, healthcare, and education for the new arrivals. Despite the city’s projected $982.4 million budget deficit for 2025, staff at city-run shelters — providing security, case management, and cleaning services — are being paid between $60 and $150 per hour. Last year, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson joined four other Democratic mayors in pleading with the Biden administration to allocate $5 billion to address the ongoing migrant crisis. In response to mounting challenges, local leaders recently announced plans to integrate homeless and migrant shelters into a unified system. During a community meeting four days ago, city officials unveiled the One System Initiative. "Over time, we recognized that we need a more equitable system that was open not just for new arrivals, but for other unsheltered, unhoused Chicagoans," said Deputy Mayor Beatriz Ponce de León. However, many Black residents have expressed frustration over the resources being allocated to migrants. “There’s been a lot going on with (the migrant gangs) that nobody’s even hearing about,” Zacc Massie, 27, a street leader who first went to prison in 2015 and just recently got out, told The New York Post. “They be moving in our own territory and robbing people but they don’t get arrested like we do,” he continued. “I actually talked to one on the translator app. He told me all the things he got going on; how they helped him get a car, an apartment, (EBT) card, all this stuff. They giving them thousands, we get maybe $400 a month. And they don’t even have Social Security numbers!”Chicago is witnessing rising tensions between local gangs and Venezuelan migrants, including members of the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
