Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is going south, and in more ways than one.
Johnson has announced that he will lead a city delegation to the southern U.S. border “soon” to survey the situation there. As his administration preps for the trip, the city’s migrant crisis is spiraling.
Since August 2022, 17,000 migrants have arrived in Chicago from Texas and other states on the southern border. “More than 10,100 are in city-run shelters, while another 2,400 are in Chicago police stations and 820 at the city airports,” the Tribune reported last week.
“We have anywhere from 23 to 25 buses that we would expect to be coming in on a 24-hour cycle,” the mayor’s deputy chief of staff, Cristina Pacione-Zayas, told WLS-Ch. 7. “We are not able to control the number of buses. But what we can control is when we better understand what’s happening at one of the source points.”
The Chicago team would point out the difficulties of travel to Chicago in the middle of winter, Pacione-Zayas explained to Politico Illinois.
The city has been deluged with migrants, and Johnson has been bombarded with critics. While he is at the border, the city will be drowning in the crisis.
Aldermen such as 11th Ward Ald. Nicole Lee are crying, “Enough!” In an Oct. 3 letter to Johnson, Lee noted that there are “roughly 298 migrants” living at the 9th District police station in her ward, which includes Chinatown. The situation is “unsafe and unsanitary for the migrants, the police and our community,” she wrote, as she asked for more support and resources. “Mr. Mayor, the 9th District cannot handle any more migrants at this time.”
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Other aldermen have expressed similar concerns about the perils at some of the large shelters, which are housing hundreds of asylum-seekers. In recent weeks, at raucous community meetings across the city, the loudest voices have pushed back hard on proposals to locate shelters in their neighborhoods, only to see city officials go ahead with the controversial moves.
Residents of South Shore have filed a lawsuit demanding that the city of Chicago cease housing the migrants in publicly owned buildings. The lawsuit argues that using facilities such as police stations and schools endangers the community’s health and violates city zoning laws.
Meanwhile, the Johnson administration has signed a contract to erect massive, climate-controlled tent camps to house the refugees this winter, while Gov. J.B. Pritzker and others have questioned that effort as Chicago’s polarlike season approaches.
So, when Johnson travels to the border, he will leave behind a city in crisis and plenty of questions. Such as, has the city reached out to neighboring towns and suburbs and asked them to accommodate some of the migrants? Some have argued that vacant schools and government buildings could be repurposed as temporary housing. Are city officials considering that option?
Is it time for Chicago to declare, “Enough!” and refuse to take on any new arrivals?
We already know what’s going on at the border — a steady flow of desperate people crossing into our country to escape harsh, and in some cases, deadly, political and economic repression. The refugees are willing to get to a place where they may sleep for weeks on floors in police stations, rather than remain in those terrible places.
Critics dismiss Johnson’s planned trip as a publicity stunt, a high-profile attempt to show he is large and in charge. Mr. Mayor, instead of touring the border, here’s a better use of your extremely valuable time.
You love to remind voters that you are a former community organizer. So, you should be right at home, attending those community meetings to hear firsthand the barrage of complaints and concerns of your constituents and respond. Instead of jumping on a jet to fly 1,400 miles to the border, take a short ride to O’Hare International Airport to inspect the humanity languishing there.
Come to my neighborhood, where I regularly walk by the shuttered American Islamic College, at Irving Park Road and DuSable Lake Shore Drive. The school has been transformed into temporary housing for 1,000 migrants. Young children are playing outside, their numerous bicycles propped up inside the gates. All are provided beds, hot showers and regular meals.
Directly across the street, on an embankment butting up against the busy drive, sit several thin, raggedy tents blowing in the wind. Living there are homeless Chicagoans.
Mayor, ask yourself, what’s wrong with that picture?
Laura Washington is a political commentator and longtime Chicago journalist. Her columns appear in the Tribune each Monday. Write to her at [email protected].
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