Since last Thursday, two groups of unapproved migrants have arrived via bus at Naperville’s Metra Station, according to Naperville spokeswoman Linda LaCloche.
In a post by the Chicago Tribune, it says LaCloche could not say how many migrants were on the buses or where they came from; also, to her knowledge, none of them stayed in Naperville; They all boarded a Metra train for Chicago.
Strict laws in Chicago related to migrants
This comes after the Chicago alderman approved new penalties on December 13 for the city’s migrant drop-off restrictions. Such penalties include bus seizures, impoundment, and fines.
To avoid such penalties, Chicago officials have said that bus drivers have started to unload migrants at suburban train stations. Some of those locations include Naperville, Aurora, Lockport, Kankakee, Fox River Grove, and Elmhurst.
Naperville’s plan to handle migrants
In 2022 the City of Naperville developed a migrant Emergency Operations Plan to prepare for this situation after Chicago was declared a sanctuary city.
“As you know, we started planning for this in 2022,” LaCloche told the Chicago Tribune. “Given how the situation is evolving and changing, we continue to update our plan and keep it current with the given situations we are witnessing. We have been actively meeting since mid-December due to the changes with Chicago’s policies.”
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