Lockport follows other cities and sets fines for unauthorized buses carrying migrants

Lockport — The Lockport City Council voted Wednesday to officially adopt an emergency order to stop what the city says are unauthorized buses from dropping off migrants from Texas in the city.

The order was first created last month following an incident days before Christmas when asylum seekers were let off a bus from El Paso, Texas in the Lockport Metra parking lot.

The passengers on the bus were without food, blankets, or any clear idea where they were, according to Lockport police. Lockport officials and police were able to determine the group was headed for Chicago and contacted authorities there through the Will County Emergency Management Agency before using township buses to take them the rest of the way.

“We don’t have the resources to process people or house them here,” said Mayor Steven Streit at Wednesday’s city council meeting. “We arranged to take people to Chicago to get better direction and help they need. This order is a way for us to keep folks going to these facilities safe and where they’re supposed to be.”

In order to control the flow of migrants into the city, Chicago has implemented limitations on when buses can take migrants to its designated landing zone and requests advance notice of arrivals.

Non-compliance can result in fines for bus companies and buses being impounded. As a result, buses have started going into the suburbs and dropping asylum-seekers at train stations without further assistance and leaving them with no idea when they might be able to take a train into Chicago.

Between Dec. 14 and 23 there were 14 such drop-offs in Will County, mostly in University Park.

Lockport’s order is similar to Chicago’s and the city of Joliet and imposes steep fines on bus companies which make unauthorized drops of passengers in the city.

The order provides power to the Lockport Police Department to fine bus operators and impound buses that did not receive proper clearance to drop passengers in the city of Lockport, or do so at unauthorized times, in order to protect the health and safety of Lockport residents and migrants.

“Unscheduled intercity buses” — meaning any bus operating outside a set schedule or coming from outside the Chicago-Joliet-Naperville area to drop off passengers in the city — must receive a permit to do so from the city five days in advance of its arrival and must arrive between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. weekdays.

As part of receiving approval, the bus operator must send a list of passengers and have conducted background checks on all passengers older than 18. Bus operators who violate these rules will be subject to fines of $750 per passenger and a $5,000 fine, plus fees for the towing and impounding of the buses.

Streit noted that since Lockport and other suburbs had implemented the orders, they had not had additional drop offs.

“The bus drivers didn’t want to get their buses impounded, so they started dropping them anywhere,” he said. “There seemed to be a belief if you left them at a train station they could get to Chicago, not realizing the Metra schedule stinks. Between us saying its unacceptable and putting the rules in, it seems to have stopped.”

The order was passed unanimously by the City Council, and only one resident spoke on the issue to clarify that the migrants who had arrived in the city had been sent onward to Chicago.