Chicago migrants: Cook County Health works to provide health screenings for new arrivals

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Whether it's walking through several countries or surviving dangerous jungles to get here, many migrants are arriving in Chicago with serious health issues.

"We have seen about 6,000 patients directly in our clinic, but overall through our system, we've given over 30,000 visits to individuals," said Cook County Health CEO Israel Rocha Jr.

Rocha said the county is working with the city to get migrants screened. Most are taken to a fully-staffed clinic in Belmont Cragin.

"We do full reviews, anything from tuberculosis to measles, vaccinations, COVID-19. We do a full assessment of the patient," Rocha said.

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Rocha said adults and children are given the full assessment and, if needed, treated with medications. Behavioral health treatment is also available

"We've been able to mitigate a lot of the conditions because we are there. We see these patients very quickly and address these issues," Rocha said.

Despite trying to reach as many migrants as possible, not all go through the health screening process.

There have been reports about chicken pox, tuberculosis and Scarlett fever. According to the Chicago Department of Public Health, there have not been any such cases or outbreaks reported to CDPH. In the meantime, the county will continue to care for migrants.

"Cook County was built here to be a community that ensures access and care to everyone, regardless of your ability to pay," Rocha said.

But, there is a price. Migrant care has cost Cook County Health about $1.8 million per month since asylum seekers began arriving last August.

To continue caring for migrant health care, Rocha said Cook County Health will need more money from the state. He hopes lawmakers will come through this week in Springfield.

This comes as dozens of migrant children staying at a temporary shelter in Little Village joined a nearby elementary school on Monday, local Ald. Mike Rodriguez (22nd) said.

"Even if it's just two weeks, it's two weeks," he told the Sun-Times at an event near the school last week. "Kids should be in school."

The school, near 27th Street and Kostner Avenue, is about half a mile away from where the local alderman established a temporary shelter for migrants at the Piotrowski Park earlier in the month.

Rodriguez didn't know exactly how many students would enroll, but estimated that from the 200 migrants there, around 40 to 50 kids would join the elementary school and up to a dozen high school-age students might soon join Little Village Lawndale High School.

"Despite the fact that this is a crisis, a man-made crisis, made by xenophobic, racist policies from southern governors, we should also look at this is as an opportunity to bring in new energy, and the revitalized immigrant spirit to our community," he said.

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"This reinforces who we are. We're welcoming, we're migrants, and the people coming in become a part of our society. They become taxpayers, renters and eventually homeowners, they fill our classrooms, they do essential work, they are us."

The welcome they have received is in sharp contrast to the pushback immigrants have faced in some parts of the city.

"As an immigrant community we're naturally positioned with the resources and the neighbors that are very welcoming to the migrants," he said.

As much as the neighborhood has to offer migrants, Rodriguez said their arrival could bode well for the future of the neighborhood.

"I hope they stay and become a fabric of our community, as Mexican immigrants did decades ago, and eastern European and Polish immigrants did a generation before them," the alderperson said.

CPS did not immediately respond to a request to comment.

The Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this report.

Michael Loria is a staff reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times via Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster the paper's coverage of communities on the South Side and West Side.