CHICAGO — The City Council committee charged with overseeing immigration issues hasn’t met in nearly eight months, even as Chicago has become a target of mass deportations and drawn the ire of the Trump administration over its sanctuary city policies.

Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th), chair of the Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said the committee has instead been focusing on “on-the-ground” engagement in neighborhoods, like hosting Know-Your-Rights workshops for immigrants. He said the committee is still discussing what kinds of legislative action the city can take on immigration issues, which are largely under federal jurisdiction.

Less than two years ago, Vasquez was appointed to the committee’s top position and pledged to hold committee meetings once a month . Under his predecessor, the committee failed to meet for more than a year at the height of the migrant crisis.

With the federal government controlling immigration policies, Vasquez said he sees the committee’s purpose as providing accountability and updates.

“It’s a little bit challenging to get things done via hearing when there’s not much legislatively that the city can do,” Vasquez told Block Club. “So we plan on doing quarterly hearings to then report back all the things that we’re doing.”

The first committee meeting this year is scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday at City Hall. The meeting will include a subject matter hearing on “recent efforts to support immigrant and refugee communities in Chicago,” according to an agenda posted online.

Vasquez said the committee called on officials with the mayor’s Office of Immigrant, Migrant and Refugee Rights, the Office of Budget and Management and the Chicago Police Department to testify about what they know about ICE interactions in Chicago or how much the city has spent on migrants following Mayor Brandon Johnson’s recent testimony before a congressional committee.

But Vasquez said Friday none of them will be attending Tuesday’s hearing due to concerns from the city’s law department about officials answering questions on the issue while it’s being sued by the federal government .

Vasquez said he understands the situation, but it’s still “frustrating” they won’t even appear at the hearing to make a statement.

Vasquez also attributed the lack of hearings to “spotty” committee attendance; if a committee can’t meet quorum, meaning at least half of its members are present, it can’t proceed with official business, according to the City Council’s rules of order .

Vasquez also said the committee launched a weekly virtual briefing last month to help Chicagoans understand how the city might be affected by any federal immigration actions.

A Promise To Meet Monthly

The immigration committee hasn’t met much recently despite promising to meet monthly.

In 2022, the committee, chaired by then-Ald. Ariel Reboyras (30th), had been publicly inactive even as a crisis was hitting the city: Texas officials sent hundreds and then thousands of migrants on buses to Chicago , most arriving with nowhere to stay and few resources.

The committee met four times in 2023, records show. When Vasquez took over as chair in June 2023, the committee passed a resolution pledging to meet once a month . The resolution was significant because that meeting was only the second time the committee had met since September 2021 .

At the time, Vasquez said the immigration committee had to do better.

“We have much work to do,” he said.

But the immigration committee met only four times in 2024.

In March 2024, the committee passed an ordinance requiring the city to publicly report the number of migrants being forced to leave shelters, and it was passed by the full City Council the following month.

On July 2, 2024, the committee passed three non-binding, largely symbolic resolutions , two of which were later approved by the full City Council. One called for hearings on the visa program for victims of crimes and another called for the United States to give Ecuadorian migrants temporary protective status.

A July 23, 2024, meeting consisted largely of a two-hour hearing about the city’s migrant shelter eviction policy, during which city officials gave a presentation detailing how many people had exited the shelters, received extensions or requested shelter again after being forced to leave. Committee members did not vote on any resolutions or ordinances in that meeting. Later in the fall, the shelter systems for migrants and for people who are homeless were combined.

During the second half of 2024, public hearings from the committee stopped, even as President Donald Trump was reelected and his border czar, Tom Homan, promised mass deportations would “start right here in Chicago.”

Late last month, an adult was picked up by immigration agents outside a Southwest Side charter school with two children in the car during dropoff, ICE officials confirmed.

Chicago officials have said ICE has made more than 100 arrests in the city since Trump took office, but details surrounding who ICE has arrested remain unclear .

As panic swept through Chicago’s immigrant communities, the immigration committee didn’t meet. Vasquez said the city was “immersed, if not drowning, in budget season” at that time.

“I think it would have been challenging to have any real substantive committee meeting during the fourth quarter because of that,” he said.

An ‘Interactive’ Committee

Ald. Raymond Lopez (15th), a vocal critic of the city’s response to migrant arrivals , chastised the committee for not holding public meetings following Trump’s election and inauguration.

“You mean to tell me [the] committee could not have met to discuss next steps? What our options are for our residents?” Lopez asked, referring to the anti-immigrant rhetoric coming from the federal government.

The committee’s job is to pass laws and provide oversight, neither of which is being done, Lopez said.

Vasquez defended the committee’s work outside of meetings, saying it’s not the only way to serve Chicagoans. He said the committee under his leadership has done better than previous iterations, specifically by improving transparency through data tracking, providing a platform for mutual aid workers who supported migrants during the crisis and opposing a failed proposal from the Mayor’s Office to build tent cities for migrants .

In 2023, Vasquez launched a dashboard detailing the number of migrant arrivals and how many were living at city shelters.

The committee’s neighborhood workshops and virtual briefings are also ways to ensure “we’re using the committee and the resources to their best utility,” Vasquez said.

“There are times where we’ve seen that a meeting with eight alder[people] and 12 members of the public isn’t the best use,” Vasquez said.

Ald. Michael Rodriguez (22nd), a member of the immigration committee, said just because the committee hasn’t held hearings “doesn’t mean work isn’t going on.”

“I feel like it’s one of the most interactive committees,” Rodriguez said, adding that the committee has held events in his Little Village ward.

Other Committees Fail To Meet Regularly, Too

The Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights isn’t the only committee to meet infrequently. While some — like the finance and zoning committees — meet nearly every month, others rarely convene at all, city records show.

The Committee on Health and Human Relations met five times in 2024; the Committee on Education and Child Development met on seven occasions, none since October; the Committee on Contracting Oversight and Equity met in January after only meeting twice in 2024; and the Committee on Aviation has only met four times in the past year and a half.

The City Council’s legislative committee system has come under scrutiny in the past . Committees have often been used as ways for mayors to reward allies with an additional budget and staffing that were directed to non-committee work.

Under Chicago’s municipal code and the council’s own rules, the 19 committees have jurisdiction over city policies and practices, with the power to shape local laws and advance them to the full council for passage.

In practice, the committees have also been set up to protect fiefdoms, dispense political favors and silence opposition. Even the best-run committees have largely been used to advance the agenda of whoever is mayor. Sometimes that’s meant killing proposals the mayor doesn’t like. Other times it has required rubber-stamping routine bureaucratic matters — while ignoring or barely reacting to more pressing issues.

The Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights is a fairly new committee for City Council, created under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot in 2021. Reboyras was its inaugural chair.

Since Vasquez became chair, the committee’s budget has more than doubled — going from $120,465 in 2023 to $275,610 in 2024 and $283,188 this year, budget records show.

Most of its spending has gone toward salaries for the committee’s three full-time employees, including about $231,000 last year, records show.

The committee has a chief of staff, director of community engagement and director of operations, according to the committee’s website. The staff research policy, coordinate neighborhood events with partner organizations and assist other ward offices if urgent cases with immigrant residents come up, Vasquez said. He stressed that the employees don’t do work for his ward office.

The committee has also spent smaller sums on other expenses. Last year, it put about $17,000 toward its website and the new arrivals data dashboard. Since December 2023, committee funds were also used to reimburse Vasquez a total of $1,066 for “parking, gasoline, insurance and maintenance of a motor vehicle,” records show.

Block Club Investigative Editor Mick Dumke contributed to this report.