Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is looking to spend another $70 million to help the 38,000 immigrants who have arrived in the city since 2022.
Mayor Johnson briefed City Council members on plans to boost funding to keep the city’s response to helping immigrants afloat.
Sources familiar with the briefings have told the Chicago Grandstand that the mayor’s team hopes to allocate $70 million from the city’s surplus.
If approved by the council, the $70 million would be added to the $150 million already set aside in the 2024 budget for the response to the migrant problem.
Johnson officials noted that no budget cuts would be necessary to fund it for now, as they have planned for a scenario in which they would draw on surpluses.
Mayor Johnson has begun briefing City Council members on plans to boost funding to keep the city’s response afloat to help those staying afloat.
Yanis Vasques, 3, center, sits next to her mother Verónica Vasques, 23, left, both from Venezuela, as she sells food outside a migrant shelter on the Lower West Side on Feb. 15 in Chicago.
Children cover their heads as they sit outside a migrant shelter on Wednesday, March 13, in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood.
They told officials that the money would go primarily to staff, rent and food, which have always been the biggest expenses.
State, county and city officials said in February that $321 million would be needed to sustain the immigration operation through the end of the year.
The state and county pledged about $250 million of that amount, leaving officials $70 million short of their projected amount.
Johnson originally agreed to provide that to cover the shortfall before backtracking, 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.”
The Tribune asked Gov. JB Pritzker if Johnson had asked the city council for more money.
The governor defended his record, saying he had been “working very hard to address the crisis of immigrants who have been sent here from Texas.”
Pritzker added: “They are being treated the best they can.” It’s not that the city has stopped offering jobs. And this is just a continuation of what the city offers us.’
The Tribune asked Gov. JB Pritzker about Johnson asking City Hall for more money
A young child sleeps on the floor of a city-operated makeshift shelter at O’Hare International Airport on August 31, 2023.
According to the city, nearly $300 million has been spent on the immigration crisis since Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s first bus arrived in the Windy City.
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.”
Johnson joined the mayors of New York and Denver, which are also inundated with immigrants, at the time in calling for the crisis to be declared a federal emergency.
Johnson has insisted that the city would not open any more migrant shelters and called on Pritzker to make good on his promises to build his own.
Mayor Johnson himself says the huge influx of immigrants 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 having difficulty serving the approximately 15,000 asylum seekers. crammed into 28 shelters throughout the city.
Governor Abbott has sent more than 25,300 migrants to Chicago since August 2022, on buses.
Chicago attempted to get them to designated locations during business hours and confiscated buses that did not follow these rules.
However, bus companies responded by dropping migrants up to 60 miles from Chicago, and Abbott began sending them on charter flights.
Venezuelan migrants were bussed to Chicago by Texas Governor Greg Abbott last December.
Arriving immigrants were forced to sleep in Chicago police stations at the beginning of the crisis.
Conditions at Chicago migrant shelters have been under the microscope since five-year-old Jean Carlo Martínez Rivero died on December 17.
Johnson maintained that there was “no evidence that shelter conditions caused this young man’s death.”
Cases of tuberculosis were detected in migrant facilities last week following a recent measles outbreak in shelters.
The Chicago Department of Public Health did not disclose the exact number of cases or which shelter they originated from.
Officials confirmed that “a small number of cases” were reported “in a few different shelters” in the city.
“These outbreaks occur in close spaces, in people who live close to each other,” said 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 the public should not panic.