Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson wants to spend another $70 million to help the 38,000 migrants who have come to the city since 2022.
Mayor Johnson briefed city council members on plans to push through the money to keep the city’s response to helping migrants afloat.
Sources familiar with the briefings told the newspaper Chicago Tribune that the mayor’s team hopes to release $70 million from city surpluses.
If approved by the council, the $70 million would add to the $150 million already set aside in the 2024 budget for the response to the migrant problem.
Johnson officials noted that cuts are not necessary to fund this at this time, as they have planned for a scenario in which they would dip into surpluses.
Mayor Johnson has begun briefing city council members on plans to push through funding to keep the city afloat.
Yanis Vasques, 3, center, sits next to her mother Veronica Vasques, 23, left, both from Venezuela, as she sells food outside a migrant shelter on Chicago’s Lower West Side on February 15
Children cover their heads as they sit outside a migrant shelter in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood on Wednesday, March 13
They told officials the money would go mainly to staffing, leases and food, which have always been the biggest expenses.
State, county and city officials said in February that $321 million would be needed to support the migrant operation year-round.
The state and county have committed about $250 million of that, leaving officials $70 million short of the expected amount.
Johnson originally agreed to provide that to cover the deficit before pulling out, telling reporters: “There are a number of issues that need to be resolved.
“No one in the state of Illinois, in this country, questions Mayor Brandon Johnson’s commitment to this mission.”
Governor JB Pritzker was asked by the Tribune whether Johnson had asked the City Council for more money.
The governor defended his record, saying he has “worked very hard to address the crisis of incoming migrants sent here from Texas.”
Pritzker added, “They are being treated the best they can. It is not that the city has failed to provide work. And so this is just a continuation of what the city has to offer us.”
Governor JB Pritzker was asked by the Tribune whether Johnson had asked the City Council for more money
A young child sleeps on the floor of a city-run makeshift shelter at O’Hare International Airport on August 31, 2023
Nearly $300 million has been spent on the migrant crisis since Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s first bus arrived in the Windy City, according to the city.
The number of asylum seekers in city shelters appears to be falling after a peak of 15,000 in December, when officials warned the system had “reached capacity.”
At the time, Johnson joined the mayors of New York and Denver, which are also swamped with migrants, in calling for the crisis to be declared a federal emergency.
Johnson has insisted that the city should not open any more migrant shelters and called on Pritzker to follow through on his promises to build his own shelters.
Mayor Johnson himself says the massive 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’s struggle to care for its roughly 15,000 asylum seekers. crammed into 28 shelters across the city.
Governor Abbott has bused more than 25,300 migrants to Chicago since August 2022.
Chicago tried to get them to arrive at designated locations during business hours and impounded buses that didn’t follow these rules.
However, bus companies responded by dropping off migrants as far as 60 miles from Chicago, and Abbott began sending them on charter flights.
Venezuelan migrants were brought to Chicago by Texas Governor Greg Abbott last December
Migrant arrivals were forced to sleep in Chicago police stations earlier in the crisis
Conditions in Chicago’s migrant shelters have been under scrutiny since five-year-old boy Jean Carlo Martinez Rivero died on December 17.
Johnson claimed there was “no evidence that the conditions of the shelter caused the death of this young boy.”
Last week, cases of tuberculosis were discovered in migrant facilities following a recent outbreak of measles in shelters.
The Chicago Department of Public Health has not released the exact number of cases or which shelter they came from.
Officials confirmed that “a small number of cases” were reported “in a few different shelters” around the city.
“These outbreaks are happening in close quarters, from people living close together,” Dr. Aniruddha Hazra, associate professor of medicine, Infectious Diseases and Global Health at the University of Chicago. Fox 32 Chicago.
Hazra said the situation is worrying but there is no need for the public to panic.