Father Michael Pfleger (Screenschot, ABC-TV Chicago)
Prominent Chicago Catholic pastor Father Michael Pfleger said he’s very worried that the rapid issuance of work permits for migrants could lead to jobs being taken away from the city’s Black workers. Pfleger—whose Saint Sabina parish has adopted 50 migrants—said, “I told them to beware. Rushing this work permit [for the migrants] is a good thing, but there are some things that need to be in place, but nobody could give me an answer.”
He called on Mayor Brandon Johnson and Governor JB Pritzker to exercise caution and ensure equitable systems are in place before granting these permits.
Pflieger is senior pastor at St. Sabina Catholic Church. Fr. Pfleger became a priest in the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1975. And in 1981, he became the pastor of St. Sabina.
Pfleger’s primary concern is that allowing migrants to work for much lower wages could lead to exploiting both migrant and Black workers, potentially creating tensions between the two groups.
During his address, Pfleger pointed out that some individuals had already reported cases where migrants were paid minimum wages, as low as $5 per hour, for a day’s work, The Chicago Crusader reported.
Furthermore, Pfleger stressed that there is the need for systemic change to address economic inequality. And on that end he said he had reached out to the offices of Senator Dick Durbin, the mayor, and the governor, and noted that there are some things that need to be in place. He always said he asked how they planned to make sure Black workers weren’t pushed out, “but nobody could give me an answer,” he said.
Pfleger suggested migrants could become the new “slave labor.” He recounted two cases he heard of where “people were picked up outside Lowe’s on 87th Street, brought to do some work in somebody’s house, dropped off and given a few dollars, and they worked all day.”
He continued by asking, “What are they going to do? Call the police?”
He said employers will take advantage and use lower-paid workers.
“They play on the fact that when you are desperate, you will take crumbs. So, what are we putting in place to make sure that poor people and newly welcomed individuals in our police stations and shelters are not mistreated and exploited by their desperate situations?
“What are we putting in place to make sure that there are no institutions in this city, this state, and country that will fire Black people because they have to pay them $15 or $16 an hour and then hire a migrant and pay them $5 an hour? What are we putting in place?”
He called out the politicians for not addressing the issue.
“They will sit back in their chairs; Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and Socialists will sit back and be still while we kill each other over crumbs,” said Pfleger. “If you are going to fight, fight over the pie and not the crumbs of the pie.”
He also said he had a solution.
“I say we have thousands of shelters in Illinois, of abandoned buildings. Take some money and give it to Black and brown contractors,” he offered. “Hire the migrants who will live in those houses who have skills in landscaping and construction. Hire them. They can work on their house with the construction people and live in their house.”
That way, Pfleger said, Black and brown contractors can make money while getting rid of abandoned buildings and, the homeless in Chicago and the migrants. “We would end poverty,” he said.
Pfleger’s supporters say his outspoken views have gotten him attacked. He has been accused and cleared three times of sexual allegations.
The most recent was in December 2022.
A review board found no evidence the pastor was guilty of sexual abuse and he was reinstated after being suspended during the investigation, ABC Chicago reported.
“I thank you for believing in me. I thank you for never giving up on me,” Fr. Pfleger said during his first public comments after being reinstated. T”his has been very painful. It would be twice in a row in, like, two-and-a-half years. But two things: God is faithful. God is faithful no matter how bad things look.”
Fr. Pfleger was asked to step aside from the ministry in October after a man in his late 40s filed a claim with the Archdiocese saying that he was abused while a member of the Soul Children of Chicago choir in the 1980s.
He was the third man to file a claim with the Archdiocese of Chicago accusing Fr. Pfleger of sexual abuse.
Father Michael Pfleger (Screenschot, ABC-TV Chicago, https://abc7chicago.com/father-michael-pfleger-reinstated-chicago-priests-accused-of-abuse-archdiocese/12555867/)
