As temperatures hover below freezing and the season of giving looms, Chicago’s decision to “clear” tent encampments from Humboldt Park creates fresh fears, confusion, and controversy. Though such events are hardly isolated.
The Supreme Court, after all, allowed bans on public camping earlier this year, and members of the incoming Trump administration have repeatedly blamed immigrants for urban homelessness and a lack of affordable housing.
As a political science professor in Illinois studying immigration attitudes and political rhetoric, I am familiar with the tendencies of political leaders to scapegoat immigrants for social problems and pit vulnerable groups against one another. And I know this: When the most basic rights and resources become a zero-sum game, everybody loses.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s busing of asylum seekers to cities like Chicago and New York strained shelter systems already providing for large numbers of U.S. citizens experiencing homelessness. In reaction to these issues, some political leaders explicitly pit migrants against U.S.-born citizens experiencing homelessness. Many of these messages also specifically target Black citizens who are three times as likely to experience homelessness. Former and President Elect Donald Trump’s infamous “Black jobs” comment was in a similar vein.
Other high-profile leaders have echoed these claims. For example, last year New York City’s embattled mayor Eric Adams argued that the arrival of asylum seekers would “destroy New York City,” and the former leader of the NAACP Illinois chapter Teresa Haley was asked to step down after she described migrants as “savages” and “rapists”.
Throughout the crises, some media outlets have seized on the narrative of Black residents protesting the cities’ response to migrants without paying attention to the bigger picture. The frustration of communities of color facing decades of neglect is justified. But instead of channeling this energy toward asylum seekers —who have little social or political power— this is a good time to bring attention to those frustrations: namely, residents’ lack of say-so in the policies that directly affect their neighborhoods.
In Chicago, using shuttered schools in predominantly Black neighborhoods for migrant shelters and job training centers created animosity among residents who were not informed or consulted. School closures inflict harm on Black communities and can hasten disinvestment so these decisions were salt in that wound.
Importantly, policies that devalue residents of color are intimately tied to policies that make it hard for immigrants to survive or for people experiencing homelessness to exist, because they are based on the same logic of artificial scarcity rooted in greed. They use the tools of the government to punish, rather than aid, people in need.
Housing experts argue that assigning individual blame distracts from systemic issues like rising housing costs and the stagnation of real wages. Yet individuals bear the weight of stigmatization, punishment and persecution in addition to their lack of shelter. Even within shelter and housing systems, dangerous conditions persist.
For example, growing numbers of asylum seekers are sleeping on the streets of Chicago—in part because they have been pushed out of shelters due to eviction policies, but also because they report unsafe shelters and unlivable rental units which they describe as lacking necessities and far away from jobs and resources.
Pitting vulnerable groups against one another causes them to lose public support and allows the public to lose interest, nuance and important information about social problems. Furthermore, when leaders argue that one vulnerable group deserves more than another it begs the bigger question: Why isn’t there enough for everyone?
Homelessness and global forced displacement are massive challenges that will require a radical revisioning of society to be truly solved. In the meantime, we can fight for more durable solutions for people experiencing homelessness now.
One fix with bipartisan support is for Congress to provide rapid work authorization for asylum seekers which would make this population far less dependent on shelters. Local and state governments should ensure that asylum seekers do not face discrimination from landlords or unsafe housing. Those living outdoors should not be criminalized or cut off from public spaces without safe alternatives. Americans who have long experienced homelessness should be provided with permanent housing and support so they can finally exit the shelter shuffle. These solutions must be accompanied by a wider range of policies aimed at increasing affordable housing for everyone.
And all of us can do our part to hold leaders accountable and push back against dehumanization and pitting rhetoric.