Alejandra Perez, her former partner Jader Castro and her children Sharlott Barrios, 9, and Juan Sebastian Castro, 5, who are all Colombian asylum seekers, head towards a local bus taking them to a shelter, after arriving by bus to Chicago from Texas, in downtown Chicago, Illinois, U.S., October 25, 2023. Due to a shortage of shelter beds, Perez and her children ended up sleeping in a tent outside a Chicago police station and then moved to a family shelter, where about a hundred families slept on cots on one floor of the building, Perez said. “We are in a holding pattern,” she said as she waited for her work permit. REUTERS/Carlos Barria