Residents confront Joliet Township about plan to help asylum-seekers

About 350 people showed up to the Billie Limacher Bicentennial Park Theatre as a standing room only crowd flowed into the lobby, most of them demanding that Joliet Township give up an $8.6 million grant to provide services to asylum seekers.

The Joliet Township Board meeting was raucous from the start.

“The [heck] with you, ma’m!” the first speaker shouted at Township Clerk Alicia Morales before ending his comments.

Township Supervisor Angel Contreras was booed when he concluded his opening remarks saying, “We are all children of God.”

But many of the speakers at the meeting had questions about how the township pursued the grant and comments about the impact it would have if the township followed through.

“When this decision was made, where was the representation from the very communities that this is going to affect?” asked Rev. Larry Ellis, pastor of St. Mark CME Church.

Ellis pointed to township plans to turn the former Peter Claver Center into a welcome center for asylum seekers and said “we were misled” when the township acquired the building earlier this year.

Many of the speakers accused the township of seeking the grant without consideration for Joliet residents.

“You have not asked us,” Nona Parker said. “You have not considered what it would do to our communities.”

Some speakers supported the township on the grant and supported assistance for asylum seekers.

“Give them a chance to be part of your community, and you’d be surprised,” one said.

Another was virtually booed away from the microphone as she spoke in support of the grant.

What the township eventually will do about the grant was not decided Tuesday.

Contreras told the crowd that the township board would decide at a future meeting whether to accept the grant or withdraw the application.

The township announced last week it was moving its regularly scheduled meeting to the venue to accommodate a larger crowd that was anticipated since the news about the grant plan was reported.

The monthly township board meeting marked the first public forum held by township officials about the $8.6 million grant since it surfaced Sept. 29, when Gov. JB Pritzker announced it had been awarded.

The size of the grant, second only to one awarded to the city of Chicago, created a firestorm of controversy and opened speculation that Joliet Township would make Joliet a destination city for asylum seekers.

Joliet Mayor Terry D’Arcy and Will County Board Chairwoman Judy Ogalla have called on the township to withdraw the application for the grant. Both said township officials had not talked with them about the grant. D’Arcy described the application as “almost a fraud” for listing his office as being in support of the asylum plan.

Contreras made his first public statement on the grant almost a week after it was announced and said it would be used to fund services already being provided to asylum seekers who have been arriving in Joliet for more than a year.

But details in the grant application indicate the township would create new services.

The application outlines plans for four welcome centers or clinics for asylum seekers to be created and staffed in Joliet, while also indicating plans to create space for shelters.

The proposal for welcome centers has created more backlash.

The Joliet Park District rescinded a pending lease with the township for its Hartman Recreation Center located at 511 Collins St. after learning last week that the building had been proposed as a welcome center. A park official said the township had indicated it planned to use the space for office space and community activities.

Likewise, a spokeswoman for Duly Health & Care said the medical group did not know that its medical office building had been included as a potential welcome center or clinic in the grant application.