Almost every day, Jesus Fernandez walks along Montrose Avenue in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood ready to clean building windows. The 40-year-old Venezuelan migrant hauls a bucket and a large cleaning pole. In his backpack, he carries a big bottle of antifreeze and rags.

Fernandez arrived in Chicago nearly four months ago and is actively looking for a job. But without a work permit and five kids to support back home, he had to figure out a way to quickly make cash.

“I am willing to work on anything,” Fernandez says in Spanish. He says he makes about $60 in less than three hours when he cleans a big building.

“But some days, I don’t make any money, I just walk.”

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Like other migrants in Chicago, Fernandez is desperate for money. More than 34,000 migrants sent to Chicago from Texas and other states since August 2022 want financial stability. Many are seeking asylum and may qualify for work permits. But these applications can take a long time and not everyone knows how to navigate the process or where to go for help. Most migrants do not speak English, making it harder to find employment.

Despite the challenges, migrants are getting creative to earn a living. They do manicures, cut hair, cook food, clean houses and work construction as part of an underground economy that for years has been fueled by undocumented immigrants mostly from Mexico and Central America.

Leonardo Bonilla Gonzalez is one of the new entrepreneurs. He cooks about 80 Venezuelan-style food lunches — meat, rice and plantains — out of his apartment. He sells the meals for $10 outside migrant shelters.

“They place their order and my job is to have it ready for them the next day,” Bonilla Gonzalez said in Spanish.

But earning money is not easy, especially for migrants with children and no one to watch over them.

On a recent afternoon Denisse, a migrant from Ecuador who arrived in Chicago in December, peddled candy with her two sons on Irving Park Road. She carried her 3-year-old on her shoulders and dodged cars. Her 10-year-old sat quietly on a corner across the street from her holding a bag of lollipops.

“I don’t want to just sit there with my arms crossed,” Denisse said in Spanish. She is staying at a migrant shelter and asked WBEZ not to use her last name to protect her privacy. “I don’t have a permit, but I need to make a living somehow.”

Denisse makes about $30 in one afternoon selling candy. She said that’s something. She needs to pay for medicine for her kids, bus passes to look for other jobs while worrying about long-term housing down the road.

To help address the migrant crisis, the Biden administration granted Venezuelans who were in the U.S as of July 31, 2023, temporary protected status, which allows them to apply for work permits and temporary relief from deportation. The administration also launched a humanitarian parole program for Venezuelans and migrants from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua.

The federal and state government recently partnered with city officials and the Resurrection Project, a Chicago nonprofit, to assist migrants staying at city shelters who are applying for work permits. They estimate that of the more than 15,000 migrants in shelters, roughly 4,650 are eligible for permits. As of Tuesday, some 916 people have received work authorizations through their efforts. Advocates say many migrants are looking for help outside these clinics.

Impact on future wages

Some undocumented immigrants who arrived before the migrant crisis worry new migrants are bringing wages down in the construction business. Outside a Home Depot near the Avondale neighborhood, a group of workers from Central America say they have been getting construction gigs outside the store for years. But now about 30 migrants stand near the store in the mornings and work for as little as $5 an hour, which is about three times less than what other groups of workers make.

“They don’t know that is not a living wage,” said Mauricio Huertas, of the Latino Union, which advocates for immigrant workers. “And part of the conversation around that is telling them like, ‘OK, sure, right now you have these transitional benefits to get you set up. But how do you expect to pay for housing … when you’re earning $5 an hour?’ ”

Huertas said migrants need to be informed about basic worker protections, including the legal minimum wage.

Other labor experts say instead of seeing this as a crisis, this should be cast as a chance to boost the local economy and strengthen the labor force.

“We have a huge opportunity,” said Jaime di Paulo, president and CEO of the Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. “Texas is going to feel so sorry they’ve shipped out the actual workforce to other states. In 10 years, Chicago and New York are going to have a very, very strong labor force because of that.”

Back in the Uptown neighborhood, Fernandez said he’s already finding a steady clientele. Some days might be slow, but other days he is completely booked.

“I’ll clean any windows. That’s my job now and I like doing it,” Fernandez said in Spanish. “The only thing is that I don’t speak English.”

Adriana Cardona-Maguigad covers immigration for WBEZ. Follow her on X @AdrianaCardMag.