The flow of migrants into Chicago is a crisis and an opportunity

The entranceway of Chicago’s 19th district police station, just a couple of blocks east of Wrigley Field, the city’s pre-eminent baseball stadium, is no place to live. Yet enter it, and it is clear that people are managing it. Suitcases and bags of clothes are pushed up against the windows; mattresses and sleeping mats cover most of the available space. Small children run around, while adults watch soap operas on their phones. Amid it all, two police officers standing behind the desk try to listen to a woman who has come in to report some criminal behaviour. For the past few months, as many as 90 people have slept in this police station each night. When your correspondent visited, almost all there were Venezuelan migrants who had arrived in Chicago on buses as little as a day or two before.