23 Comments - VanillaMan - Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 1:11 pm: I hope this isn’t more Rolling Stones type of journalism. - Nick Naylor - Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 1:14 pm: HFS! - Give Me A Break - Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 1:20 pm: And Gov. Rauner just eliminated the GRF funding for addiction prevention. - Ben - Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 1:32 pm: Give Me a Break—-Didn’t know it was Illinois’ duty to solve Puerto Rico’s problem. Maybe that is the problem? - illinifan - Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 1:35 pm: Prevention won’t be an issue if they arrive here already addicted, treatment will be the problem so Rauner’s cuts in might not be an issue for this group (snark). Agree with VM I hope this is a Rolling Stone type of story. - late to the party - Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 1:39 pm: Heard the story on NPR over the weekend. Seemed very well researched and absolutely astounding. - Give Me A Break - Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 1:43 pm: Well Ben I guess you are all for creating the same problems with Illinois residents. - Formerly Known As... - Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 1:52 pm: ==This is crazy. Sick people are being sent thousands of miles from home to unlicensed drug rehab places in Chicago?== ==I called the headquarters of Alcoholics Anonymous; a representative there said they have nothing to do with these rehab places. I checked on 14 places to see if they had licenses from the state. But they had none. I checked with Joseph Lokaitis, a public service administrator with DASA, the Division of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse under the Department of Human Services, but he said he had no idea that these unofficial treatment groups existed.== ==Like other users I talked to, she said she was sent by the municipal authorities from Bayamon. She said she had tried at least six 24-hour groups in Chicago since she came.== - Juice - Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 1:56 pm: @Ben- considering that people who come here from Puerto Rico are US citizens, it’s not like we can do a whole lot about it. I believe in the 60s and 70s, the state of Illinois used to do similar things with wards of the State by just shipping them off to other places. - Guzzlepot - Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 2:02 pm: Nevada got caught doing something similar. They would ship their mentally ill to California. I believe California sued and got an eight figure settlement. Maybe we could do the same. Every little bit of extra cash will help, right. Or we could return the favor. Chicago winters are cold, I am sure some of the inmates at 26th and Cal would happily take a one way trip to Puerto Rico, especially if it was offered to them in January or February. - VanillaMan - Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 2:14 pm: Beware of the catchy bad news story so bad, it just has to be true! - Honeybear - Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 2:20 pm: Oh it’s going to be a bad day for that Family Community Resource Center (FCRC) who issued SNAP benefits to those guys. Snap Integrity Unit is going to be all over that like a puma on a peacock. - Belle - Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 2:25 pm: This is so crazy-sounding, just crazy enough that it could be true. Is also disgusting. - Wordslinger - Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 2:53 pm: One way ticket out of town — that’s old school. Not that uncommon. Greyhound would be the transport of choice in the lower 48. Back in the day, cops in Rock Island and Davenport would drop their “problems” on the other side of the river. Probably all evened out. VMan, if you read the story, you’ll see the Puerto Rican authorities cop to shipping problems to Chicago and other cities in the country. - Ethan Hawk - Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 2:56 pm: The fact that Chicago attracts these people is no surprise. Chicago has always been viewed as a sanctuary city for “anything and anybody” much like a magnet attracts scrap iron. Maybe Rauner will designate a special state fund to buy return plane tickets back to Puerto Rico for them. Rauner might even decide to send Puerto Rico a couple hundred thousand extra uninvited Illinois guests to reciprocate the favor granted us by our friend Puerto Rico. Nice to become known as the premier dumping ground for those who don’t want to pay the tab for their own indigent people. - Formerly Known As... - Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 2:57 pm: Belle, well said. This is disgusting, and Cardona-Maguigad’s work is thorough. No Rolling Stone here. - Wordslinger - Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 3:06 pm: EH, I don’t know that Chicago is “attracting”these folks, considering the coppers shoved them on the plane. According to the story, P.R. authorities admit to shipping 758 people to the states, 120 to Chicago. - Jan Wenner - Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 3:27 pm: Not a single unnamed source that I saw. Looks like pretty solid work. - DuPage - Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 4:22 pm: I had heard of this type of thing 40 years ago, concerning the mentally ill. Some southern cities would put them on the bus to Chicago. Most of them then ended up in care of the state mental health hospitals. Never heard of anything being done to stop this practice. Tom Dart should do a survey of how many of his mentally ill jail patients came here from out of state. - CEA - Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 4:54 pm: I’m sure Tom Dart has some guests who he wouldn’t mind sending to P.R. on one-way _vacaciones_. - Under Further Review - Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 5:07 pm: Sounds liked the segregationists in the Deep South issuing bus tickets to Chicago for residents that they disliked. - Pot calling kettle - Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 9:20 pm: The NPR story was broadcast on This American Life. Here is the link: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/554/not-it - read em and weep... - Monday, Apr 13, 15 @ 9:54 pm: Perhaps Von Rauner could open his own IDOC satellite office in San Juan for some aviation therapy programming? They get freedom and Spanish, we get empty prisons and outsourcing. Win-win? The IPI boys and the tribbies would be impressed. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.