Chicagoans Revolt Over City Spending on Illegal Migrants

FAIR Take | December 2024
Chicagoans clearly have a high tolerance for government corruption, fiscal mismanagement and high taxes. But even residents of the Windy City have their limits. Over the last several weeks, public anger and frustration has boiled over as city leaders sought to approve a budget that proposed to spend millions of dollars on illegal aliens. Citizens turned up at a series of City Council meetings to vent their anger about the city’s lavish spending on the migrants who have poured into Chicago since the Biden-Harris administration threw open our borders.
Chicago is a sanctuary city within a sanctuary county within a sanctuary state. According to the city’s website, when migrants show up, they “are greeted by City officials who transport them to temporary shelters, when space is available.” As they settle in, the city provides “legal services, children and youth services, resettlement and wrap-around case management to support them in their process of integration into the City of Chicago.”
Not surprisingly, Chicago has become a magnet for migrants. More than 50,000 have settled in the Windy City since August 2022, costing the city an estimated $574.5 million.
But now faced with a nearly $1 billion budget deficit for 2025, Mayor Brandon Johnson defaulted to what big city politicians usually do in these situations: He proposed raising taxes, with the biggest chunk of that increased revenue stream coming from a $300 million bump in property taxes. Illinois already has the second highest property tax rates in the nation,
Homeowners and other Chicagoans, i.e. the residents who would be paying those higher taxes, could not help but notice that the amount that the city was paying to provide “wrap-around” services to illegal migrants amounted to more than half of the projected budget shortfall. They also could not help but notice the impact the migrant crisis was having on the safety of their communities and the quality and availability of the services they rely upon.
All of these factors seemed to have contributed to a perfect storm of public discontent. As the City Council, with Mayor Johnson presiding, conducted final budget deliberations on December 11 and 16, Chicago’s self-induced migrant crisis appeared to have been the final straw for fed-up constituents. One after another, they stepped up to the microphone accusing Johnson of betraying his oath of office by placing the interests of illegal aliens ahead of the interests of the citizens who elected him.
“We don’t want illegals in our community,” O’Cyrus King, a local activist told the mayor and the City Council at the Dec. 11 meeting. King’s remarks summed the sentiments of the parade of citizens objecting to the city’s sanctuary status, while they got stuck with the bills. “We don’t want migrants terrorizing own people and have you all…tell us we have to accept $70 million [more] being given to them when you have black people already struggling and need help.”
A week later, the City Council was back in session to finalize the 2025 budget. Their unhappy constituents were also back. Once again, they were “merciless” in their confrontation with the mayor and the council over the city’s indulgence of illegal migrants, leading to Johnson order the public removed from the chamber before the vote to approve the budget was taken. The city did yield to public opposition to property tax hikes (although it did raise other taxes) but did not zero-out the budget for migrants or relent in its commitment to being a sanctuary for illegal aliens. The 2025 budget provided $40 million (the same amount it took in a short-term loan) to Chicago’s One System Initiative which combined the migrant and homeless shelters into a single support network and expanded the shelter beds to 6,800.
While city leaders continue to defy the public by shielding and subsidizing illegal migrants at taxpayer expense, they will soon confront a more formidable advocate for the public interest. Tom Homan, President-elect Donald Trump’s Border Czar, traveled to Chicago earlier this month and he had a strong message for the mayor. “We’re going to start [the process of deporting illegal aliens] right here in Chicago, Illinois. If your Chicago mayor doesn’t want to help, he can step aside. But if he impedes us—if he knowingly harbors or conceals an illegal alien—I will prosecute him,” Homan said. “January 21, you’re going to look for a lot of ICE agents in your city looking for criminals and gang members, Count on it. It will happen.”
Many Chicagoans are not only counting on it; they are looking forward to it.
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