Chicago activists are criticizing Mayor Brandon Johnson for trying to replace blacks with immigrants and demanding a $6,000-a-year property tax exemption that other groups would still have to pay.
Howard Ray, a Chicago reparations activist, revived his Reconstruction-era Repair Now Act campaign this week to get property tax breaks for black households, saying the surge of immigrants in Chicago was hurting African Americans.
Other Black Chicagoans have taken to social media to criticize Mayor Johnson for $9,000 payments to immigrants to cover their rent and help furnish their apartments, saying it is driving them out of long-standing Black neighborhoods.
The United States has seen an influx of asylum seekers across its southern border in recent months, many heading to Chicago, straining social services as hundreds camp out at police stations and O’Hare Airport.
In a widely shared video post, which DailyMail.com could not independently verify, the Chicago woman complained that Latino immigrants were driving people out of her neighborhood.
“They’re using our taxes to ruin our communities,” Ray told Chicago’s Morning Answer.
‘They are using our taxes to support and defend illegal immigrants. And meanwhile, they are expelling us.
Howard Ray says black people shouldn’t pay property taxes
Ray launched his campaign last year, saying that black Chicagoans face much higher eviction rates than others, and that freeing them from property taxes would be fair compensation for the legacy of slavery.
Property taxes on a single-family home in Chicago and its suburbs average between $2,500 and $7,500 each year, according to real estate website Virtuance. Taxes have increased in recent years, putting pressure on the budgets of the poorest households.
“We’re losing a lot of black culture in Chicago,” added Ray, a former city council candidate.
‘A lot of black people are moving out of Chicago because of crime and taxes… moving to the red states, the southern states. By not paying property taxes, (blacks) will be able to save themselves.”
Cutting taxes for blacks would be revenge for the injustices of slavery, Jim Crow, racial lynchings, “redlining” policies to restrict black homeownership, and the mass incarceration of blacks for drug crimes. , he added.
Chicago residents have held rallies against Mayor Johnson’s immigration policy, including this event last year against his plans to convert a park district cottage into an immigrant shelter.
Arriving immigrants were forced to sleep in Chicago police stations at the beginning of the crisis.
“We’re trying to preserve black people so they stay here” in Chicago, Ray added.
‘We don’t want our people to leave this city. We built this city.’
Black Chicago residents expressed similar concerns about Mayor Johnson’s support of asylum seekers, with shelters and $9,000 payments, saying it came at the expense of African Americans who helped elect him last year.
“I don’t understand how they can give thousands of dollars to these immigrants in the state of Illinois, but look what they’re doing to our own people,” a Chicago woman said in a video. that has been viewed 59,000 times.
She described seeing ‘Latinos’ arrive in her neighborhood in a ’12-foot truck,’ using government welfare checks to ‘buy everything’ and effectively drive black residents out of the neighborhood.
“The fact that they are here and that our government is giving them more than people who were born here is really starting to piss us off,” said the woman in the video, which DailyMail.com could not independently identify. verify.
“Mayor Brandon, we’re coming for your ass.”
The mayor’s office did not respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment.
The number of asylum seekers in the city’s shelters appears to be declining after peaking at 15,000 in December, when officials warned the system had “reached capacity.”
A worrying 69 percent of Chicagoans disapprove of Johnson’s handling of the immigration crisis.
At the time, Johnson joined the mayors of New York and Denver, which are also inundated with immigrants, in calling for the crisis to be declared a federal emergency, freeing up funds to bail out struggling cities.
In recent days, Johnson, a Democrat, has rolled back or rejected more than $300 million in additional funding for immigration surges.
An Echelon Insights poll conducted in January found that 69 percent of Chicagoans disapproved of Johnson’s handling of the immigration crisis. Only 23 percent approved of the mayor’s actions, 8 percent were unsure.
The surge in migrants has been a headache for Democratic-run northern cities and President Joe Biden’s administration, as it is a priority for millions of voters and could influence the outcome of November’s presidential election.
Arrests for illegal border crossings from Mexico hit an all-time high in December since monthly figures were released, officials said last month, exposing a growing vulnerability for Biden in his campaign for a second term.
The Border Patrol counted 249,785 arrests on the border with Mexico in December, 31 percent more than the 191,112 in November and 13 percent more than the 222,018 in December 2022, the previous all-time high.
Arrests fell by more than half in early January, in line with historical trends for immigrants.