Illegal Immigration Becomes Yet Another Calamity For Chicago, With Worse To Come – Wirepoints

By: Mark Glennon*

The consequences were inevitable. Now they are here. A border all but open combined with sanctuary status and generous assistance to migrants have created a humanitarian and financial disaster for Chicago and much of America. And with illegal** immigration now likely to soar, the crisis will deepen.

Even left-leaning media can no longer ignore it. The headline on an op-ed in Friday’s Washington Post, for example, is America’s Border Crisis is Already Here. “This crisis is no longer just a border issue, as cities like New York and Chicago face strains on resources and services that border communities like El Paso have dealt with for years,” says the column.

And from Friday’s Chicago Sun-Times:

The calamity is so dire — with young families sleeping on the floors of police stations and “walk-ins” rising from 10 to 125 a day — the city is now being forced to make “hard decisions” that include taking Brands Park Field house and Leone Beach House offline and using shuttered South Shore High School to serve as emergency shelters for asylum-seekers.

Protesting city plans on Thursday. Source: Hyde Park Herald.

Chicagoans increasingly have had enough as well. When city officials tried Thursday to deliver a presentation on their plan for housing immigrants on the South Side, they were shouted down with chants that sounded more like a parody of a MAGA rally: “We don’t care” and “We don’t want them here.” Others yelled, “Send them back” and “Close the border.” Someone in the crowd held up a sign that read, “Build the wall 2024,” the Sun-Times and others reported.

City and state policy to attract illegal immigrants continues, however, and is actually expanding. Aside from Chicago’s sanctuary status that bars cooperation between local police and federal immigration authorities, a broad range of taxpayer-financed programs have invited them to come, including public education with special language and cultural accommodations, college scholarships, housing and food assistance, various non-discrimination measures and even simple cash handouts.

Free Medicaid for undocumented immigrants is turning out to be the most costly of all, and the state never bothered to assess cost when it was implemented. It now costs Illinois taxpayers nearly $1 billion per year. The cost of the initially covered immigrants was 93 times what we were initially told, and it was later expanded to cover lower age groups. Undeterred, House Democrats have House Bill 1570 moving to further expand free health benefits for undocumented immigrants by adding ages 19-41 to the program.

Last week, the Illinois House also passed a bill to make it possible for noncitizen residents to receive a standard driver’s license.

At the national level, the entry process has deliberately been made easy. As reported by CNN, the U.S. is working with Colombia and Guatemala to set up regional processing centers to allow migrants to apply to come to the U.S. before they attempt the harsh trip through Central America and Mexico. “The whole idea of regional processing centers is to give people a lawful, safe, regular way to enter the United States,” a senior Biden Administration official told CNN.

And now, Illinois Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth are among senators proposing a whole new category for bringing in immigrants. They want the administration to let in more to address labor shortages, as reported Saturday by The Hill.

Many Chicago politicians, including Mayor-Elect Brandon Johnson and Mayor Lori Lightfoot, repeatedly blame the crisis on 8,000 migrants sent here since August by Texas Governor Greg Abbott. “He is a man without any morals, humanity or shame,” Lightfoot said, charging he had “inhumanely loaded them onto buses,” then cited “Gov. Abbott’s racist and xenophobic practices of expulsion.”

Have people blaming Texas not seen the videos of what the crisis is like there?

In truth, that 8,000 bused-in immigrants is trivial. Aside from the foolishness of insulting Abbott as Lightfoot did, she is lying about the source and scope of the problem. Estimates of the number of illegal immigrants in the United States range from 11 million to at least 16 million. That means some 440,00 to 640,000 would probably find their way to Chicago eventually, or already have, based on Illinois’ portion of America’s population. They may not be here yet, initially being concentrated in border areas, but they surely will ultimately end up in welcoming places like Chicago.

Chicago’s numbers on cost make no sense on their face. The city says immigrants are costing Chicago $20 million per month. That would be $2,500 per immigrant per month if the problem is with the 8,000 bused in by Texas, as Lightfoot and Johnson want us to believe.

All the numbers are likely to soar. A surge to 400,000 per month entering the nation is projected based on end of Title 42 on May 11, which was put in place during the pandemic, allowing border agents to expel about a quarter of the immigrants they apprehended for health reasons.

If that number materializes, Chicago should expect to see it’s share swell to at least 16,000 per month.

In a supposed effort to counteract that surge, the Biden Administration said last week it is enacting a new rule to prohibit asylum seekers from entering the country without making their asylum request beforehand. However, those assistance centers in Mexico and Central America are intended to make that process easy. The State Department and DHS have also urged those people to use a mobile app to make an appointment at a port of entry rather than trying to cross the border, according to CNN. So, there’s little reason for confidence that the new rule will suppress the surge.

Most of the estimates of illegal immigration are far too low because they count only those caught by the border service. In addition, there are “gotaways,” as they are called, who don’t seek formal asylum. They include the dangerous ones who could not seek asylum because of criminal records. Nobody knows how many of those really enter the country but border agents say at least 1.2 million gotaways entered the country in the last two years.

Border agents are among the harshest critics of current policy. “The massive crush of illegal aliens coming through our border [when Title 42 ends] will make the last 2 years look like amateur hour,” says the Border Patrol union. “And Biden doesn’t have one clue about how to contain what he’s unleashed. He has a clown running DHS and a worse clown as VP.”

“Don’t believe anything the White House says, adds the Border Patrol Union. “We have lying propagandists running this country and DHS right now.”

Volunteers helping immigrants in Chicago are overwhelmed. They sent a letter last week demanding City Council “relieve us from the overwhelming work we have been doing in the absence of city, state and federal resources. We are tired, we are running out of our own money, and we are incredibly worried about what’s to come unless we see major developments from our government.”

Chicago has turned desperate about where to house the immigrants. Many police stations are jammed with them. At one station, “you can’t even walk in the lobby. There are so many migrants there and there’s many health issues. Some of them are sick, they’re vomiting, there’s not enough bathrooms,” reported FOX Chicago. With no notice, the city took over an Avondale park facility to house migrants; No more after-school or summertime programs will be held there. The formerly posh Standard Club now houses immigrants. The Inn of Chicago now houses only immigrants. McCormick Place and Navy Pier are under consideration.

How has Illinois’ top leadership responded?

From Johnson, there’s denial. He hesitated even to call it a “crisis” because he believes that would suggest “we’ve done something wrong.” Instead, Johnson said, “It’s a dynamic I believe is essential to our democracy, people being able to experience safety and security in a place that has brought people from all over the world.

There’s one common element in the response by city and state leaders: Taxpayers must cough up more money, whether at the state or federal level. The city and state recently got $8.3 million but want far more, so far asking the federal government for $125 million. Gov. JB Pritzker, Johnson and Lightfoot all want federal taxpayers to pay. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle went to Springfield last week asking for state money. She earlier also asked for federal aid for the county.

Finally, the most astonishing lie in memory came from the White House last week. Biden Spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre claimed this Monday: “When it comes to illegal migration, you’ve seen it come down by more than 90%” under President Biden.

We’ve heard no call for the border to be enforced, no thoughts of adjusting sanctuary status and no intention of reducing the financial incentives for immigrants to come.

Nor have we heard a peep about what Biden Administration once called the root cause of illegal immigration, problems in the nations the migrants are fleeing. Biden assigned Vice President Kamala Harris to that. What became of it? Nothing, as described here.

True, compassionate resolution of this catastrophe ultimately must address those root causes and must also include comprehensive federal immigration reform, we’ve long said. But nothing is clearer than that the border must be enforced, immediately, and that the city and state have no capacity for generous assistance to immigrants. Chicago was already on life support thanks to its other crises – crime, finances, failed schools and corruption. Now it has another disaster and, as with the others, no serious response is at hand.

The border must be enforced. We have no choice.

*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.

**I have used the word “illegal” because it is objectively correct, even for those who have turned themselves in and are seeking asylum, as explained here.

61 Comments
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Mommamia
10 months ago

This is Barack Hussein Obama’s fundamental transformation of America. This is happening everywhere USA eliminating all local zoning laws under the language of “affordable housing.” Guess whose going to be occupying those apartments built right in residential neighborhoods? Guess who is being displaced and being replaced? Legal, law abiding, taxpayers! Here are examples, to give everyone a glimpse into what awaits us….Minneapolis, a city dealing with the devastating flood of “refugees’ and “immigrants” under the Barack Hussein Obama administration . These are articles from CT, GA and NY as well. Feel free to look up other States, but you’ll get… Read more »

debtsor
10 months ago
Reply to  Mommamia

This do this because they hate you, deplorable.

Silverfox
10 months ago

Chicago was proclaimed a sanctuary city by the current mayor. The mayor-elect has followed suit. Those who, in all probability, voted for both of these people are now whining about taking more IAs and putting them in their neighborhoods. South shore High School is the current no go zone. What’s the lesson here? As you vote, so shall you reap. When you cast your ballot next time maybe you should listen to the candidates and not just look at the color of their skin. Judge by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Hey, that’s catchy.… Read more »

Froideterre
10 months ago

Arrest the illegal aliens (a.k.a. migrants) for breaking our laws and deport them.

Susan
10 months ago

For those who wish to sell goods and services to The City of Chicago, or State of Illinois, there are laws about processes of bidding and procurement. Million$$ monthly in sanctuary services is a ‘big pie’ and deserves scrutiny as to who is allowed a fork.

If nobody is willing to insist that these laws be followed, Illinois gets whatever services/at whatever prices determined by them who hold the public purse strings, and them beholden to them.

(30 ILCS 500/) Illinois Procurement Code.
https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs4.asp?DocName=003005000HArt%2E+1&ActID=532&ChapterID=7&SeqStart=100000&SeqEnd=5700000

Procurement ServicesWe are the contracting authority for the procurement of goods and services for the City of Chicagohttps://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/dps/provdrs/contract/svcs/current_bid_opportunities.html

FJB
10 months ago

Saw a video last night of a local citizen reporter who tried to get into the hotel downtown to have a look around and he was turned away and they called 911 on him. They don’t want people looking around or talking to residents. Taxpayers are paying about $25 million per month according to him. But you can’t ask where the money is going. I sent Mark a link to it.

The Paraclete
10 months ago

Lori declared chicago a welcoming sanctuary city, theNcomplains! She should talk to her friend ELHANDJOB MYORKAS

Rob E
10 months ago

No politician in the state is serious about this matter. Another perfect example of we got what we voted for.

Good Luck taxpayers!

james smith
10 months ago

lets start busing them back to the border/mexico

jajujon
10 months ago
Reply to  james smith

That’s inhumane! Seriously however, they’re not ping pong balls. If sanctuary cities want to walk the walk, they should embrace them all and they should have been completely prepared to house and feed them. Better, if they were truly virtuous, the idea of transferring them north should have originated from sanctuary cities themselves. I’d have more respect for Lightfoot, Adams, Breed and Bass if they put their words into actions.

Daskoterzar
10 months ago

If just 1% of the 5M Illegals are perhaps, say, a coordinated un armed military group, passing over our fully open boarder, separating throughout the country, arming themselves inside the country and waiting for the time to join together and wage war internally…that would be an army of 50K. If 1/2 % that would be 25K. The people running this country now, have no idea who is crossing the boarder and their intentions. Couple this with the poison crossing the boarder to kill americans, the distraction of our leaders on woke crap and what pro-noun to use, and the over… Read more »

Last edited 10 months ago by Daskoterzar
FJB
10 months ago

According to El Paso 15K are entering every day. And why are there military age Chinese males getting on the buses? And who is paying for the buses?

Eugene from a payphone
10 months ago
Reply to  FJB

Also, when they show IA’s headed our way, check the shoes. Some group is providing good footwear for the new arrivals. Possibly an NGO funded by… wait for it…us!

ron
10 months ago

Every city and state should take their FAIR share.

JackBolly
10 months ago
Reply to  ron

Why? You do understand America is a Republic?

Old Joe
10 months ago
Reply to  Mark Glennon

Spot on Mark. Speaking about law enforcement, todays CWBChicago has a story about one of Lori’s new imports.

Bill also
10 months ago
Reply to  ron

We should build refugee camps and the economic immigrants can wait there till their cases are heard / decided.

Last edited 10 months ago by Bill also
JackBolly
10 months ago
Reply to  Bill also

I believe that was point of PDJT’s agreement with MX, the so called ‘Remain in MX’ plan. Of course Biden and the establishment media bashed it as ‘racist’. So here we are with a massive crisis that the Leftist Democrats created and seem unwilling to deal with in any sensible way.

Henry Hatch
10 months ago
Reply to  ron

Our Fair Share is ZERO Invaders

ron
10 months ago
Reply to  ron

sarcasm is so hard , lighten up out there

IllinoisHomeOfTheSwamp
10 months ago

Look, the geniuses who run this city declared it as a sanctuary city… Time to eat one’s words.

jajujon
10 months ago

Chicago is a sanctuary city in name only. It was a virtue signal exercise. When reality set in, the whining began. Put up or shut up, Chicago.

FJB
10 months ago
Reply to  jajujon

You need look no further than Martha’s Vineyard last year. As soon as the Hispanics get dumped there *BAM*, down comes the hammer with National Guard. It only took them 24 hours to remove all the illegals except for a Kenyan with a fake Hawaiian birth certificate.

Last edited 10 months ago by FJB
General Nuisance
10 months ago

Where’s Obummer on this and other matters, such as crime, schools, etc.? Too busy constructing his migratory bird destroying tower in Jackson Park, which he’s also destroying?
You’d think that winning the Noble Peace Prize would make him feel somewhat obligated to
staunch what’s destroying the city he is alleged to have come from. Nope. This opportunist
has used Chicago as a doormat on which he now wipes his feet. Chicagoans, when you bet
on the wrong horse, disaster looms before you.

Steve H
10 months ago

Chicagoans are still betting on the wrong horse.

IllinoisHomeOfTheSwamp
10 months ago

Obama is on the Vineyard nervously watching the ocean rise…. Oh wait, those are little waves lapping at his feet.

Eugene from a payphone
10 months ago

He doesn’t live in Illinois any longer.

Steve H
10 months ago

Got to recognize the genius of Governor Abbott in sharing the pain of unenforced border with self proclaimed Sanctuary Cities 1,000 miles or more from the border. It’s interesting to hear the hypocritical response by the likes of Pritzker and Lightfoot. Last, Mark’s insertion of “root causes” was likely a pun. I look forward to hearing more from Mayor Elect Root Causes Johnson on this topic.

John Proud MAGA
10 months ago

Every person who thinks the illegals should be housed here must be required to have a family of five illegals housed in their person house, and they must provide all food for them. We’ll see how long that lasts.

Same for these ridiculous NGOs like Catholic Charities. They’re nothing but a bunch of liberals that don’t care about the country and instead wear their religion on their sleeves, all the while helping to destroy the country.

State_pension_millionaires
10 months ago

Ms Precwinkle: The suburbs and
Downstate need help from Springfield also.

If I’m a politician near the Mexico border, I’m shipping asylum seekers up north where blue state politicians play pretend.

Donna S
10 months ago

No one is above the law, we are told often.

Earl Hickey
10 months ago

According to the Chicago Sun Times , Chicago is actually spending $7,000 per migrant , per month. Since there are currently 8,000 migrants in the City, that translates into 56,000,000 per month. I see an increase in Illinois’ income tax rates in our future

The Doctor
10 months ago
Reply to  Earl Hickey

Where do I sign up for 7k per month? I’ll make less but working two jobs at 70 hours per week, I’ll live with the pay cut.

taxpayer
10 months ago

I haven’t seen any information about the kind of folks who are immigrating. Are many of them people with skllls, who could earn a living in the US if permitted to do so? Are many of them political refugees fleeing persecution in their homelands? Are the parents more conscientious than those of the carjackers and other criminals we read about daily? I don’t know how we’re going to get answers to such questions, as everybody seems to have an agenda. But these are things we need to know if “we” are to deal intelligently with the problem. Notwithstanding the above,… Read more »

The Doctor
10 months ago
Reply to  taxpayer

No people with skills are not coming here. We are the escape valve for many failed countries.

taxpayer
10 months ago
Reply to  The Doctor

How do you know this?

JackBolly
10 months ago
Reply to  taxpayer

Unskilled, uneducated, non-english speaking, uninoculated, many with disease, many criminals, many gang members, many terrorists. ALL wanting handouts.

taxpayer
10 months ago
Reply to  JackBolly

Your source?

JackBolly
10 months ago
Reply to  taxpayer

Gov Abbott, Mayor of El Paso and the State of TX. Read more than the Tribune and Sun Times.

John Proud MAGA
10 months ago
Reply to  Mark Glennon

Wow, have you drunk the Kool-aid. You should house some of them in your own home, and provide for their food and shelter on your own dime. Get back to me after you’ve done that.

Honest Jerk
10 months ago
Reply to  Mark Glennon

I don’t fault them for leaving their homelands. I blame the Dem U.S. cities and states that make it so tempting/easy, along with our federal government. People forget we do have a legal immigration system. If our economy requires additional labor, increase the number we let in thru the front door, and close the back door.

FYI: Mexico is likely to have a booming economy at some point. The cost of labor has risen drastically in places like China, making Mexican labor more attractive, especially to U.S. manufacturers. A decade from now, this problem may start to solve itself.

JackBolly
10 months ago
Reply to  Mark Glennon

Not the case in Central IL from my experience – most come to take advantage of the social network and charity. We have always had seasonal migrant workers who were here legally, mostly in ag. This is all different.

debtsor
10 months ago
Reply to  Mark Glennon

But do we REALLY need them? Or are illegal migrant workers just cheaper than investing in machinery to harvest? As the saying goes, a migrant squatting to harvest vegetables is a 10,000 year old technology, while machines have made massive advances and operate seemingly autonomously. Too many farms are reliant on the migrant workers for cheap pay and refuse to make the capital investment to upgrade the technology, because they don’t have to, because the illegals show up 2x a year to live in squalor in their back forty. You should youtube some videos on machine harvesting, the techology has… Read more »

Last edited 10 months ago by debtsor
Where's Mine ???
10 months ago
Reply to  Mark Glennon

I’m with you Mark, US desperately needs MASSIVE LEGAL IMMIGRATION of both low skill & high skill workers to stop us from becoming Japan but are current plan or no plan is a disaster.

debtsor
10 months ago

This is a self-licking ice cream cone. Here. Bring in migrants that contribute to inflation, compete for jobs and housing, and then complain that the natives aren’t having enough babies, because the cost of living is too high. Meanwhile, the migrants are living off Medicaid, schooling their children for free, getting all other sorts of free assistance.

JackBolly
10 months ago

News flash – Leftist Democrats just don’t care about the crisis they have created. All of a sudden it’s everyone’s responsibility to pay for the problem Leftist Democrats created. These people have NO business being in any kind of leadership, and yet they get elected.

Pat S.
10 months ago
Reply to  JackBolly

Keep the electorate dumb and that’s all we’ll get.

Call me a conspiracy theorist if you’d like, but the low standards for students and the general dumbing down of the population seems coordinated.

Just say’n.

ProzacPlease
10 months ago

Great summary of the problem(s). Thanks Mark!

Goodgulf Greyteeth
10 months ago

Democrats win this battle so long as they’re able to continue calling illegal aliens something else, and passing Medicaid off as some sort of ‘insurance’.

Honest Jerk
10 months ago

The illegals will probably gravitate to sanctuary cities and states, perhaps assisted with transportation from a border state, hence not my problem here in Tennessee. How long before some bright Dem genius in Chicago proposes giving the illegals some kind of reparations?

Pat S.
10 months ago
Reply to  Honest Jerk

And, perhaps, a voting card?

FJB
10 months ago
Reply to  Pat S.

Passing out flyers with pictures of “Rachel” Levine, Dylan Mulvaney and that bald headed guy with lipstick who had to quit after he got stealing luggage should do it. A picture of them, an equal sign with a Democrat donkey on the other should do it. But I don’t think there is going to be an election at all.

FJB
10 months ago

Fortunately for Dick Durbin the mentally handicapped can get elected to the US Congress in Illinois.

Old Joe
10 months ago
Reply to  FJB

The White House too

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“We are not in good shape” Wirepoints’ Ted Dabrowski told ABC 20 Champaign during a segment on Illinois’ latest population losses. Illinois was one of just three states to shrink in the 2010-2020 period and has lost another 300,000 people since then. Ted says things need to change. “It’s too expensive to live here, there aren’t enough good jobs and nobody trusts the government anymore. There’s just other places to go where you can be more satisfied.”

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