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Immigration has always shaped Chicago’s neighborhoods, its expansion and its culture.
Immigrants have stabilized the city’s population, allowing it to maintain slow growth in recent years. Foreign-born workers are integral to the local economy, particularly in the construction, manufacturing and service industries.
Chicago politicians brag about their immigrant backgrounds, as in the Irish American Daleys, and it is not uncommon to see signs in English, Spanish and Polish on downtown buildings.
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“Chicago has been very chill about immigration,” said Rob Paral, a demographer at the Great Cities Institute of the University of Illinois Chicago. “It’s not a radioactive issue here.”
As the Trump administration announced this week that it had begun a crackdown on illegal immigration in the city, elected officials and local advocacy groups loudly pushed back, citing Chicago’s history as a city that has welcomed immigrants.
