Climate migration to Chicago on the rise, community reflects on city’s response
Lake Michigan, pictured above, provides a substantial water source that will be a draw for climate migrants, according to UIC professor Ralph Cintrón. The area’s plentiful access to fresh water could make the Midwest a key destination for those fleeing drought, as reported by the Wisconsin State Journal.
Photo Credit: Zella Milfred, Medill
In September 2017, Hurricane Irma caused a storm in Puerto Rico that left Sachayra Cintrón without electricity or clean water. When news broke that Hurricane Maria was heading directly towards Puerto Rico just weeks later, she packed a suitcase and moved to Chicago with her two young children. Cintrón was born in Chicago and had lived there until 2010.
“Due to the fact that I didn't have electricity or water for a whole month already, my youngest son had a rash all over his body,” Cintrón said. “So that was the reason why I came back to Chicago, you know, Hurricane Maria just sort of pushed me back this way.”
Cintrón wasn’t alone. Following Hurricane Maria, 1,600 displaced Puerto Rican migrants resettled in Chicago, according to Alianza Americas. José López, the executive director of Chicago’s Puerto Rican Cultural Center, estimates that up to 3,000 Puerto Rican migrants entered Chicago following the hurricane, with some staying only temporarily.
Chicago may increasingly become a destination for climate migrants leaving areas prone to increasing floods, hurricanes, drought, wildfires and extreme heat. A 2022 study by the moving service HireAHelper, which surveyed United States census data from the areas most at risk of climate change, found that Cook County received the seventh most climate change related moves within the U.S. since 2010.
Increased migration from Puerto Rico to Chicago is almost certain, according to Ralph Cintrón, a professor of Latin American and Latino studies at the University of Illinois Chicago. He said he has “no doubt” this will occur due to Chicago's proximity to a substantial fresh water source and its projected moderate temperature in comparison to other places.
“Not only do we expect increased migration from the island, we expect increased migration from Central America,” Ralph Cintrón said. “Assuming that things become more and more uncomfortable around the world, Chicago will be a recipient for quite a few migration patterns from all over.”
For the six months following Hurricane Maria, local non-profit The Puerto Rican Agenda of Chicago worked with the city and other local organizations to open a welcoming center for incoming climate migrants.
López said nearly every major city department was present to offer resources to new arrivals, including information on housing, education, healthcare, food and other social services. Five years later, the organization is now raising funds to support those impacted by the more recent Hurricane Fiona.
Sachayra Cintrón said having grown up in Chicago made the move less challenging than it potentially was for others entering the city for the first time. She found housing in Humboldt Park, where her mother lived, and she already knew the schools in the area in which she enrolled her children.
When it comes to climate migration, Lauren Stokes, an assistant professor in Northwestern University’s history department, said it is important to consider the factors that make migration more accessible for certain individuals. These include wealth, familial relations and access to passports for those crossing borders.
Climate migrants displaced across borders are not classified as refugees under international law, because refugee status only applies to people fleeing their home country due to persecution by the state on the basis of their identity.
“Refugee law, because of its focus on state persecution and its focus on individual persecution, is a poor fit for the kinds of things folks are fleeing when they're fleeing environmental displacement,” Stokes said.
Climate change is a key factor in forced international displacement, according to Melanie Minuche, who worked as a paralegal giving presentations to detained migrant youth from West Africa, Central America and Southeast Asia about their legal rights in the U.S.
“Trends really had underlying pinnings of climate displacement, poverty, political unrest, just so many things. But it was really all exacerbated by the climate crisis,” Minuche said.
Minuche is now the climate justice organizer for the transnational network Alianza Americas, which works on advocacy for Temporary Protected Status (TPS). TPS is a type of temporary protection designated to people of a country experiencing sudden disorder such as natural disasters, war or political unrest. People displaced by hurricanes could be considered eligible due to a natural disaster, for instance.
This status allows people from a designated country who live in the U.S. to apply for protection from deportation. Minuche described limitations in this option, such as its temporary status and inability to facilitate a path to full citizenship.
While TPS can be enacted following a sudden disaster such as a hurricane, it does not account for the slower onset impacts of climate change such as agricultural failure due to drought or flooding due to sea level rise.
When living in Puerto Rico, Sachayra Cintrón witnessed coastlines heading underwater, another example of the slower climate change impacts that receive less emergency attention.
“Climate change on the island is real,” Sachayra Cintrón said. “At the beaches you always see how much further the ocean is coming in.”
Minuche said her team at Alianza Americas is looking to create a comprehensive, long-term legal framework for people who are displaced by climate change, which does not currently exist in the U.S.
The rhetoric used by elected officials about climate impacts is generally focused on national security, which disregards the need to support migrants, according to Minuche.
“They’re focused on how to protect people in the United States, not acknowledging the U.S’s role in global greenhouse gas emissions and the fact that greenhouse gas emissions cause climate change, worsen climate disasters and displace people around the world,” Minuche said.
COP27, the United Nations’ most recent climate conference, emphasized colonialism’s intersection with climate displacement. In response to expected increased climate migration, developing countries demanded that wealthier countries, which are the most responsible for historical climate change emissions, financially support adaptation measures and the costs of environmental losses, as reported by Reuters.
López said climate migration from Puerto Rico can only be fully understood when viewed under the context of U.S. colonial presence on the island.
Puerto Rico has been a colony of the U.S. since 1898. Although Puerto Ricans were made U.S. citizens in 1917, López said the island’s economy continues to serve U.S. interests, and citizens are viewed as “separate and unequal” under the U.S. constitution.
“We can’t talk about natural phenomena, including climate change and global warming, unless we speak about the unnatural causes,” López said.
“Puerto Rican people to this day have no real engagement and involvement in the party politics of the major decisions that are made about Puerto Rico, including the environment,” he added.
Few programs or policies have been implemented in the US to address the impacts an influx of climate migrants can have on an area, according to the nonprofit Housing Matters.
Cities in the Great Lakes region should prepare by investing in upgrades to their stormwater and drinking water infrastructure, according to Ed Miller, the co-director of The Joyce Foundation’s Environment Program.
Replacing lead service lines, for example, will ensure clean drinking water for Chicagoans and the possible climate migrants to come, Miller wrote recently in Crain’s Chicago Business.
Chicago’s 2022 Climate Action Plan emphasizes efforts to reduce carbon emissions, advance environmental justice and improve community health, but makes no specific mention of climate migration.
The project manager for this plan, Kyra Woods, said conversations about climate displacement and migration came up during the making of the plan, but that it needed to stay focused on its purpose of setting the city’s targets for carbon emission reductions.
Moving forward, conversations on climate migration will likely occur in the Office of Emergency Management and the Department of Family & Support Services. She said the city will need to consider how to support both those seeking temporary residence and long-term settlement.
Chicago's history of being a leading city for migrant rights could additionally facilitate its role as a destination for those displaced by climate change. Both Chicago and Evanston are classified as sanctuary cities, meaning authorities have pledged not to work with deportation entities such as the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Minuche said migrant-led organizations are key support systems for migrants entering the city. For example, The Puerto Rican Agenda of Chicago partners with affordable housing agencies to connect migrants with available services.
The city could potentially facilitate this type of work by redirecting funds currently going to the Chicago Police Department to education, affordable housing and mental health that would serve both people currently living in Chicago and those to come, Minuche said.
López said he is hopeful about recent legislative efforts to turn Paseo Boricua, a two-mile long stretch of Division Street that is considered the heart of the Puerto Rican community in Humboldt Park, into the first official cultural enterprise district in the US. This status would call on the local and state government to prioritize investments in the area.
“Our community has been, like Puerto Rico, an area of historical disinvestment, and confronted and exacerbated by the process of gentrification,” López said. “We need to understand that cities should be welcoming centers and not centers of exclusion.”