CHICAGO– A Texas trucking company is taking the nation’s third-largest city to federal court, sparking a legal battle over the migrant crisis that has bedeviled U.S. cities for more than a year.
The lawsuit against Chicago comes amid a larger political battle involving federal immigration policy and arguments over the rights and treatment of asylum seekers.
Here’s a closer look at the situation:
Since 2022, Texas has sent more than 100,000 migrants to Democratic-run “sanctuary cities” as it deals with rising numbers at the Mexico-U.S. border in recent years. The state contracts with several bus companies to send asylum seekers north and recently began chartering planes.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he launched his busing effort to ease the burden on border cities, adding that the federal government must take action on immigration reform. He argues that migrants choose their destinations, get free tickets and that cities must fulfill their promise to welcome everyone.
But the influx has overwhelmed major US cities, namely Chicago, New York and Denver, with mayors making their own pleas for federal aid. They call Abbott’s approach inhumane, with buses arriving at all hours and without passenger lists or coordination, especially for people who have had to make long, often dangerous journeys to reach the US. Many migrants, mainly from Venezuela, have arrived in the brutal cold without winter coats.
“The lack of care that has been seen over the past year and a half has created an incredible amount of chaos,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said at a news conference with other mayors last month.
New York Mayor Eric Adams traveled to Latin America to dissuade people from making the trip, while Johnson sent a delegation to border towns in hopes of improving communications.
Texas-based Wynne Transportation’s lawsuit against Chicago was filed in early January but received little attention until local media reported it this week. Governor Abbott’s administration had contracted the transportation company based in Irving, Texas, near Dallas, to transport migrants.
Late last year, Chicago cracked down on what it called “rogue buses,” passing rules requiring them to drop off during certain hours in an area of downtown designated as “the landing zone.”
The company’s subcontractors have since been the target of more than 90 lawsuits filed by Chicago, with potential fines ranging from $2,000 to $10,000, said Michael Kozlowki, a Chicago attorney representing Wynne.
“That really hinders their business, and it’s intimidating for these subcontractors, who tend to be smaller operators,” Kozlowski said.
The complaint, filed Jan. 5 in federal court in Chicago, argues that the city overstepped its bounds in regulating immigration and interstate commerce and violated the equal rights and due process of the company and the migrants on buses.
The city’s regulations place a heavier burden on out-of-state bus companies than on Illinois-based operators that routinely transport people through the metro area, Kozlowski said.
“Chicago is turning its back on those who want to travel here by issuing an ordinance that targets the transportation companies that transport migrants from our southern border to their desired destination – Chicago – in violation of the plaintiff’s constitutional rights,” it argued company.
The lawsuit repeatedly refers to passenger rights and suggests that Chicago discriminates against migrants by regulating bus companies. Besides Wynne Transportation, no asylum seekers are listed as claimants.
Steven D. Schwinn, a law professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said the absence of migrants in the lawsuit “betrays” the intent behind the lawsuit.
“Much of the complaint is about the impact on immigrant rights, immigrant rights, equal protection, discrimination against immigrants and yet there are no immigrants as part of this lawsuit,” Schwinn said. “That tells me this is really about politics.”
However, Kozlowski said the company can make that argument on behalf of passengers.
Schwinn said the city has a strong argument for regulating bus companies: protecting the health and safety of newcomers when they arrive and need shelter, food and other resources the city tries to provide. Chicago’s recent bout of subzero temperatures adds to that motive, Schwinn said.
Officials in Chicago declined to comment Wednesday.
“The city does not comment on pending litigation,” city law department spokeswoman Kristen Cabanban said.
Nadav Shoked, a law professor at Northwestern University School of Law, said Wynne could have difficulty showing that the city overtaxes out-of-state operators.
“The ordinance is designed so that it doesn’t stop you from getting on a bus and arriving,” he said. “It only sets conditions on where buses can stop and at what time of day.”
The lawsuit against the city intensifies the legal battle between Texas and the sanctuary cities of Chicago and New York.
Chicago has received nearly 35,000 migrants, mostly on buses from Texas. But they also arrived from other cities and by plane.
Chicago has filed nearly 100 complaints against bus companies, seized vehicles and imposed thousands of dollars in fines. New York City introduced similar rules last month and sued more than a dozen bus companies earlier this month.
To get around the rules, the buses started dropping off migrants in suburbs, miles away from the city, also at all hours and without warning. That led to arguments between the city and the suburbs and a summit in the coming days between the mayors of Chicago and several suburbs.
“The governor of Texas needs to take a look in the mirror at the chaos he is causing for this country,” Johnson told reporters last month.
In response, Abbott began chartering private planes to Chicago and New York.
“Reservation City Chicago began obstructing and attacking our bus mission. Texas will now expand our operations to include flights to Chicago,” Abbott said on X.
Chicago has not yet filed a response to the complaint and no hearings are scheduled. Kozlowski said the city received the lawsuit early this week and has three weeks to respond.
Kozlowski said he was not aware of plans to file similar lawsuits in other cities.
“I hope that a decision on the Chicago ordinance will prompt those other areas to examine their own ordinances and ensure they comply with the Constitution,” he said.
Buses continue to arrive every day. Since August 2022, more than 600 buses of migrants have arrived in Chicago alone.
“Until Biden reverses course on his open border policy, Texas will continue to transport migrants to these cities,” Abbott said on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. “We will not give up our efforts to secure the border.”
For Chicago and other cities, this has meant repeated emergency measures to shelter migrants, including parked city buses, police station lobbies, libraries and airports. Johnson, Adams and other city leaders have begged their states and the Biden administration for more money.
Asylum seekers, meanwhile, face a long wait — as long as two years — for court dates in the country’s overburdened immigration court system.
