By: Mark Glennon*
Two Illinois stories developing over the past week have a common theme, which we will get to.
First, top federal, Illinois and Chicago officials still have the welcome mat out for noncitizen migrants, but a growing number of Illinois towns and cities are having none of it. Stories now abound of local municipal measures being enacted to discourage or prohibit new arrivals, mostly in Chicago suburbs, but the trend is spreading outward.
Most measures seek to assure that busloads of incoming migrants go to Chicago instead of unloading in their community.
There’s “a long list of suburbs” passing those ordinances to deter migrant arrivals, “more communities are expected to follow suit” and the rhetoric is growing more heated, as ABC Chicago reported. The full list of municipalities is unknown, but among those reported to have already enacted measures are Matteson, Chicago Ridge, Elburn, South Barrington. Others reported to be considering measures include Clarendon Hills, Posen, Crystal Lake, Oak Lawn, Broadview.
Grundy County placed signs on Interstate 55 telling buses not to stop there. “The mayor of Chicago has created a situation that’s creating a crisis for us in setting their standards much more difficult for their buses to arrive in Chicago,” Grundy County Sheriff told ABC Chicago. Oak Park temporarily housed more than 150 migrants but says a permanent alternative is needed by the end of January,
A growing number of Illinois towns and cities are also rejecting Illinois’ new paid leave law. The law means employees will be entitled to 40 hours of paid leave for every 12-month period at a rate of one hour for every 40 hours worked.
However, the law lets Illinois municipalities opt out — for their own employees only — and that’s what a growing number are doing, as reported by the Daily Herald. Bartlett Village Administrator Paula Schumacher said there’s likely been a rush of opt-outs in December, according to the Herald.
A Norridge, Illinois village trustee told the Chicago Tribune this: “Many suburbs are opting out because the state is trying to impose procedures when we already have our own in place and we want to keep following them,” he said. “We don’t appreciate the state coming in and telling us what to do.”
That’s exactly one of the problems with the new law. Many private employers also already have procedures in place and likewise don’t appreciate the state coming in and telling them what to do. State lawmakers apparently cared nothing about them; only government employers got the right to opt out. Other concerns about the law are here.
What do these stories have in common?
The closer you get to the people, the clearer it becomes that higher level units of government are out of touch. It’s a theme we will write about often this coming year. On issue after issue, progressives in Springfield and Chicago have imposed policies that people don’t want.
That’s especially true on immigration. Polls consistently show that Americans, even in Chicago, oppose sanctuary policies and think immigration is out of control.
And that’s despite astonishing ignorance about how massive the immigration problem is. A stunning, recent Harvard-Harris poll found that just 8% of Americans know that over three million are entering the country each year. Seventy-five percent think it’s a million or less. Thirty-eight percent think it’s 250,000 or less. The actual number is 3.2 million per year at the current rate, as noted in the Harvard-Harris poll, almost half of whom never have contact with immigration officials.
Yet they fret about the number of asylum seekers who turned themselves in and are arriving by bus, which has been only some 31,000 for Illinois. That’ less than 1% of one percent of the problem. If people knew how overwhelming the problem really is, you have to wonder if there would be a true mutiny on a national scale.
*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.
This column was updated in the last paragraph to reflect the latest estimate of number of bus arrivals in Chicago.
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
The story should read “The democrats destroying a nation one state at a time”.
We are immediately putting these undocumented invaders from all over the globe on to planes trains and busses. What can possibly go wrong?
Actually, those on planes and buses are asylum seekers and probably have clean records. The scary ones with criminal records or who are terrorist risks don’t seek asylum but are among the 2.3 million who entered in the past year. Yes, 2.3 million.
They have no idea who these people are. Upwards of half of them aren’t even registered with Homeland Security and have no future asylum hearing dates. TX picks them up and ships them off. And Venezuela has a terrible reporting system. They were one of the 5 ‘muslim’ countries in Trump’s so-called ‘muslim country ban’ due to lax compliance with airline flight reporting. And that’s not to say that they won’t become criminals. These are barely literate young men with no marketable skills, except crime. This is an invasion facilitated by the Biden Administration. It’s treason, really.
Unfortunately, the definition of “asylum” has been expanded to include pretty much anything, further greasing the influx while simultaneously using the new “asylum” lie to pull at the heartstrings of a low-information public. Douglas Murray, from his 2017 book The Strange Death of Europe (which applies equally to the current U.S.): “Those who believe Europe is for the world have never explained why this process should be one way: why Europeans going anywhere else in the world is colonialism whereas the rest of the world coming to Europe is just and fair.” “If you import the world’s people you also… Read more »
Stop ILLEGAL Immigration.
It is pretty obvious that “The Left Leadership” wants Open Borders to cheat US Citizens out of our hard earned income and, will cheat US out of our elections, in my honest opinion.
#DoctorY’s Thoughts🤔
Life is so much better outside the state of Illinois. My real estate taxes went from 4k a year down to 700.00 a year. No foid card necessary to exercise my 2nd amendment rights. Left 5 years ago and should have done it decades sooner. Living in Illinois is a waste of life.
You sound like a sales pitch with cherry picked stats. What’s are you trying to accomplish by posting this? Let’s walk through your decision. I’m guessing you traded a major metropolitan area with millions of prospective business opportunities and social benefits for a house in the middle of nowhere. Selling fees and buying fees as well as moving costs and most likely a lower salary doesn’t exactly seem like a clear win to me.
Hi Dave. No sales pitch, just a far superior quality of life for less money. I am self employed contractor in Baldwin county Al. We live in a comparable home as the one we left in Illinois. The sales tax is 2% higher here but the reduction on real estate tax is more than adequate to cover. Our state income tax is 2% to 5% depending on income levels.. Our license plate fee is 130.00. The business opportunities here are endless. Back in Illinois it took 6 weeks of net income to pay real estate taxes. Now it only takes… Read more »
My auto insurance dropped from $3000 per year to only $1000 when I moved to NC. Same coverage.
Why so critical of everyone who chooses a better life somewhere else? It’s our freedom and right to do that and yet you continue to want others to wallow in the misery when it’s you who have decided to stay. Bullying people to stay is nonsense because doing the math of leaving Illinois always works out in your favor. Customers can be found anywhere around the world for those in skilled trades. You are completely oblivious to the facts about Illinois and think that financially it’s worth staying!!! 🤣🤣Who and the hell are you trying to fool? Everyone is being… Read more »
I’m critical because I can see through superficial spam and understand how social engineering works. Why on earth would anyone put fourth saving $20 on licence plates as justification for a major life decision? This sounds like something an AI would do. Keep up the responses so you can make it into my upcoming project.
“Why would anyone put forth saving $20 on license plates as justification for a major life decision” I think there has got to be a happy medium between “everything’s fine, nothing to see here, don’t listen to the ‘carnival barkers'” and “every right thinking person should have moved out of Illinois yesterday regardless of the personal or social cost”. There are many good reasons to leave if you have the means to do so, it goes way beyond just saving $20 on your license plates. However there are also good reasons for people to stay and to just keep telling… Read more »
No AI just hard realities at this point. Social Engineering experiments and other college textbook nonsense like this won’t change anything. License plates? Another grammar school comment. Take off the Pampers and get the Huggies going. You are almost ready for the Pull Ups but the Poise and the Depends are far away based on childish comments like that. You don’t need to remind everyone in the group of your superior intellect. It’s clear you are either 100% academic or a 16 year old smart High School youth. Your comments are ridiculous because you fail to see any common sense… Read more »
Im sure all the municipalities opting out of paid leave is because its a legal nightmare with lawyers $feasting$.
Mayor Johnson said the local economy can’t handle the migrant crisis and he needs big money from the federal government in order to support the continuation of this fiasco in Chicago. Public unions should be concerned, but I haven’t come across anything indicating that they are.
As 2023 comes to a close, I remain thankful for having left Illinois 3 years ago. Although I still follow WirePoints, it no longer negatively effects my blood pressure. On the contrary, it regularly reinforces my decision to leave, which is probably why WP followers are increasingly located outside of Illinois. In 2024, we former Illinois residents/taxpayers will continue to comment about how much life improved after we left. Illinois residents may find it to be mean spirited at times. It’s just that we who left can’t fathom how anyone could regularly read what Mark or Ted write and still… Read more »
Having trouble finding the basis for the rejection of the buses filled with (call them what they are!) “illegals”. If I hire a bus and take 20 ladies on a trip to another suburb to (shop, see a movie, eat lunch, go to the casino – pick one) – the local police don’t stop the bus and ask who/what we are when we disembark. No one notices. No questions asked. What is the basis for not allowing a bus to unload it’s passengers in the town? What is the criteria for saying “This bus can come here but that bus… Read more »
Right on, Karen. This is a total mess. I have little idea what the answers are to most of your questions. What’s for sure, IMO, is the border must be enforced. Unless it is, there are no answers to questions like your that nobody used to think were imaginable.
See https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/us-government-turned-away-thousands-jewish-refugees-fearing-they-were-nazi-spies-180957324/
Absolutely Mark! Enforced by our military & Nat’l Guard with weapons, and get the message out that we’re considering it to be an invasion & will act appropriately. But Biden & Mayorkas will have no part of that, so we’re stuck with continuing catastrophe until hopefully 1/20/25.
By that date there will be another 4.4M jumpers if the number 12K per day is accurate. Does not include all those who are undetected plus at least a third are of child bearing age so add another 1.46M newborns within 9-12 months.
So the population of 2 cities the size of Chicago will be added.
There are a variety of public safety arguments where a municipality could use its “police power” to protect public health and order. However, that argument probably wouldn’t work in the Illinois courts. The following may be of interest: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/us-government-turned-away-thousands-jewish-refugees-fearing-they-were-nazi-spies-180957324/ The problem these days is that places like Illinois (and elsewhere) have discretion about what laws to enforce and what laws to challenge. Immigration itself is a study in disregarding the law, and that’s at the highest level in the system where the president and his attorney general ignore the laws they don’t like. So (whether you agree … or your… Read more »
Karen–agree, I tried in another earlier comment to make the point that I’m not sure all the attempts by Chicago, counties and municipalities to try and restrict “migrant” (however “migrant” is defined) bussing doesn’t violate existing Illinois TRUST act & VOICES act law, although it seems those laws where intended for different purpose, or other existing laws. It all seems legally on shaky ground. In any case, I’m kinda surprised no pro-migrant groups haven’t tried to legally challenge all the new bussing restriction ordinances……and where’s Kwame fighting for migrants who have chosen as their destination of their own free will… Read more »
Of course, there’s no legal standing for city & state to be spending endless $100s of millions on services to migrants…and that nobody’s filing any legal challenges is the biggest shocker of all!!
Exactly, the police have no legal standing to stop the bus or the people. They don’t even have the standing to ID the passengers, unless they charge them with a crime and detain. Of course they could charge the crime of being illegal, but they will never do that. There is no standing to impede these passengers at all, the passengers have every right to tell the cops they are dismissed. Any lawyer will do a slam dunk if the cops ID or detain and this goes to court and no crime was found. Great point.
Abbott should try and file suite against all the bussing restrictions and then have Kwame defend Chicago, municipalities, etc….that would be something!!!
They pass assorted laws in my downstate liberal utopia with the heading of “public safety” and when questioned answer “as a home rule we can blah blah.” This forces people to comply or enter the legal system. Eventually those that enter the system will get a “settlement” in their favor that doesn’t set president forcing the next person to go through the whole mess again. They don’t need a basis; they do because they can. I should add, we know how they love telling others what to do.
The migrants are by and large young males. This is by design. American males won’t tolerate a draft, and wont enlist in a woke army anymore, and our military is begging for recruits. If the US is to go to war simultaneously against China, Iran and Russia as they want, we will get our butts handed to us. In fact we cannot beat Russia in a war one on one nor China, maybe Iran. Ukraine has proven we cannot beat Russia, make no mistake Ukraine is our war, we just use Ukrainians as a slave army to die for us.… Read more »
It IS an effort to get more D voters. And there won’t be the sufficient, ginormous additional spending by the House of Reps to fund millions of new recruits into the military.
5 million men @ $50k per, is $250B/yr, which is 33% increase in defense spending. Ain’t gonna happen. Isn’t enough money for it.
Politicians disregarding what voters want? Who knew?
The government is dictating to the residents. Whatever comes next will only be worse. No one knows what’s best for me but me. We have to stop voting for these people or continue to suffer the consequences.
Evidently not enuf Liberal progressive dems are suffering, so they ignore it.
The state needs over 1,000,000 more straight ticket Republican ballots next election to make any difference whatsoever.
Until then, enjoy the cluster!
If they are mail in ones most likely they will get lost in transit but the Dems will find 1.1M more at the last moment. The problem is most of the northeast quadrant including Cook are heavily unionized and organized.
Fred, you forgot about all those dead Dems who vote….
I also forgot the Chicago motto on voting which we all know.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote_early_and_vote_often
You would be surprised how many of my neighbors living in my downstate liberal utopia look at you dumbfounded when one mentions the immigration situation. The local fish wrap they utilize for their news mentions a new restaurant or the benefits of some new TIF spending program with no mention of the immigration mess. We provide a voting block for the Democrats as life goes on pleasantly for them as they vote for the destruction of life as we know it
The 50 million or so liberal utopians all around the country don’t WANT to know what’s happening. If they did they’d at least occasionally watch FOX news to see with their own eyes the video of the everyday invasion. I can’t explain their reasoning for deliberately keeping their heads in the sand.
PS: my wife’s 1 of them.
Same boat as you StvOh, its unbelievable, not even a single look at an alternate new sources.
What are you talking about??? There are very few “liberals” left. It’s all smoke and mirrors.
The MSM promotes the fallacy of illegal immigrants as ‘Just taco trucks, housekeepers, and landscapers’ Latest report on the horde is that large number from Africa and China and Middle East, nearly all military age men. Will have to have mass deportations just to protect ourselves.
They should all be issued 90 day visitor visas at the border, then deported if they over stay.
Mass deportations becomes a problem because them illegals marry citizens or have multiple children out of wedlock. So you’re basically deporting the primary financial supporter (whether they pay support or not) and putting his multiple families on more welfare. It’s an enormous cluster beyond imagination.
It’s time for replay of the old tv series, Rawhide.
When the next president is elected he can start to, “ Round um up move em out”.
Get them all to hell out of here, stop all of the giveaways to foreigners take care of ourselves for a change. Get the budget under control.
Almost forgot vote the as…… out who are currently screwing up our country
“SINCE AUGUST, THERE ARE OFFICIALLY MORE ILLEGAL MIGRANTS ARRIVING EACH MONTH THAN THERE ARE CHILDREN BEING BORN TO AMERICAN MOTHERS.”
And these are just the official encounters — we don’t know how many avoided detection.
Wow, that’s a lot of future Democrat voters. Looks like the plan is working.