Good morning, Chicago.

On a recent Tuesday morning, a family of three packed up their duffel bags outside a migrant shelter on the Lower West Side en route to El Paso, Texas, where they said they had relatives waiting. They had been in Chicago for four months.

Moises Sanchez, 24, had been a barber in his home state of La Guaira, Venezuela. He had the word “family” tattooed on the back of his head behind his ear. He came to the U.S. through Laredo, Texas, with his wife and 2-year-old daughter for economic opportunity. The family was given bus tickets by Texas state officials to go to Chicago, but he struggled to find work the entire time he was here, he said.

“From the minute I arrived here, I wanted to leave. I didn’t want to stay in Chicago. It’s freezing,” Sanchez said Feb. 13. “I can’t stand the cold.”

At least 3,194 individuals have received financial support from the state of Illinois to reunite with friends and family in other states and U.S. cities since mid-November, according to state data provided to the Tribune. The state has spent over $620,000 on travel tickets and taxi fares to airports, trains or bus stations to connect with family and friends, which city and state officials call “diversion and outmigration.”

Read the full story from the Tribune’s Nell Salzman.

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