Progressive Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker appear to be feuding over tens of millions of dollars both will need to fund a solution to the city’s migrant crisis. The Windy City is struggling to care for more than 34,000 asylum-seekers bussed in from the border by Texas Governor Greg Abbott over the past 18 months. It has spent $156 million on the crisis and still has 14,200 migrants in its 28 shelters, and is fighting with the state of Illinois about where to build more.
Pritzker, alongside Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, pledged to find another $250 million to fund their response. However, that’s $71 million shy of what officials say will be needed in 2024 alone.
While he claimed to still be talking to both Pritzker and Preckwinkle, [Mayor Brandon] Johnson did say that there were differences between the three levels of government.
‘It’s not just about financial resources,’ Johnson said. ‘As I’ve said before, right now the city of Chicago is solely responsible for providing emergency temporary shelter.’
Johnson then referred to a $65 million pledge Pritzker had made late last year to winterize an encampment which the state never came through on.
He asked reporters: ‘Remember the state, they’ve committed to 2,000 beds back in November? Do you remember that?’
The mayor also admitted that there was no guarantee the city would be able to keep shelters open and claimed the quarter of a billion dollars pledged from Pritzker might not be enough.
Many in the city believe Texas Governor Greg Abbott will ‘ramp up’ the buses of migrants being sent to the city when it hosts the Democratic convention in August, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Johnson boldly claimed that he’s the man to solve this problem.
‘No one in this city – let’s make it broader. No one in the state of Illinois, in this country, is questioning Mayor Brandon Johnson’s commitment to this mission. No one is.’
A spokesperson for Pritzker, however, seemed to indicate that there are indeed questions.
‘The governor agreed to step up and cover more than half of this cost at $182 million,’ Pritzker spokesperson Jordan Abudayyeh said.
‘The county president also stepped up to cover an additional $70 million. You will have to ask the city what their plans are for the remaining $70 million that all parties have agreed is needed to fund this humanitarian response.’
Shelters in converted warehouses in Chicago have been filled to the brim with new arrivals living in poor conditions, leading to the city commandeering other venues.
Johnson has insisted the city would not open any more migrant shelters and called on Illinois Governor JB Pritzker to make good on promises to build its own ones.
Mayor Johnson himself says the huge influx of migrants is unsustainable, but he can’t turn them away because Chicago is a ‘sanctuary city’.
He blamed both the Biden Administration and Texas for his city struggling to care for the about 15,000 asylum-seekers crammed into 28 shelters across the city.
Governor Abbott has sent more than 25,300 migrants to Chicago since August 2022, on buses. Conditions in Chicago’s migrant shelters have been under a microscope since five-year-old boy Jean Carlo Martinez Rivero died on December 17.
Johnson maintained there was ‘no evidence the condition of the shelter caused the death of this young boy’. Volunteers who try to help the asylum-seekers as best they can argue differently, submitting lists of concerns to city officials months before Jean’s death.
Photos and videos inside the shelter where he died showed 2,300 migrants huddled together in freezing temperatures under a leaking roof.
One video showed a young boy with what appeared to be a bandage on his head lying on a thin fold-out bed, distracting himself with a tablet. Another shows a different child coughing and crying as they had their temperature taken and were examined by volunteers.
A third video showed water leaking from the roof and pooling on one of the beds.
