Mayor Brandon Johnson, Photo: X/Twitter screenshot, @TheChiefNerd
The migrant crisis has the mayors of the various sanctuary cities calling for major federal help. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is now different. He recently made a video plea to President Joe Biden to please step in with financial assistance during an interview with CNN.
According to Johnson, the Windy City and other parts of the U.S. are being overwhelmed by the influx of new arrivals, many of them buses in from Republican-controlled states like Texas.
“Without real, significant investment from our federal government, it won’t just be the city of Chicago that won’t be able to maintain this mission. It’s the entire country that is now at stake,” Mayor Johnson told CNN.
The mayor wants Biden to set aside $15 billion worth of resources to address the migrant crisis. Although Biden had previously requested $13.6 billion for border security as part of a $106 billion supplemental aid package that included assistance for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, the legislation stalled in the Senate, with no vote expected until after the new year, if at all, The New York Post reported.
“We have roughly 15,000 people living in shelters, temporary shelters, here in Chicago,” Johnson said. “Nearly 27 shelters total. And 4,500 children in our Chicago public schools system, providing health care, also making sure that we are screening individuals as they come through the city of Chicago, providing, again, on-site vaccinations at all of our shelters. And this certainly has been a remarkable challenge that my administration has had to face.”
Johnson stressed that “without significant federal support, this is not sustainable.”
Johnson also criticized Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s decision to send busloads of migrants from border regions to so-called “sanctuary cities,” including Chicago, New York, and Washington, D.C. The Chicago mayor called this move “reckless,” NBC Chicago reported.
“What Governor Abbott is doing is, quite frankly, it’s reckless,” Johnson said. “… We recognize that there are challenges, significant challenges at the border, and we do need real substantive immigration reform and policies that allow us to have a structure and a pathway to citizenship.
“But again, sending buses all over the state of Illinois and all over the country is reckless and, quite frankly, is dangerous.”
He also added, “We need the federal government to invest, but we also need to make sure the governor of Texas does not take his animosity out on the rest of the country.”
Mayor Brandon Johnson, Photo: X/Twitter screenshot, @TheChiefNerd
