At least 37 kids at Chicago shelter for immigrant youth have coronavirus

(Image credit: Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images)

published 17 April 2020

At least 37 children living in a shelter in Chicago for unaccompanied and undocumented youth have been infected by the COVID-19 coronavirus.

The shelter is in the Bronzeville neighborhood, with 69 kids — infants to teens — living in a dormitory-like setting. It is run by the nonprofit Heartland Alliance, which also oversees two other shelters in Chicago. Heartland Alliance told ABC News all of the children in its custody have been tested, and the cases are confined to the Bronzeville shelter, where 76 percent of the 37 kids to test positive were "completely asymptomatic at the time of testing." The nonprofit said the children are "doing well," but would not say if any of its staff members have the virus.

There are roughly 2,400 unaccompanied minors living in shelters across the United States. Most were detained at the southern border and are in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Immigration advocates have called on officials to quickly release the sick children in Chicago and reunite them with their relatives living in the United States. The Office of Refugee Resettlement has not said if it is doing anything to try to release kids to the custody of their families, but officials did tell ABC News "out of an abundance of caution," it is no longer sending unaccompanied minors to places with a high number of coronavirus cases, including New York, Washington, and California.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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