Tipsheet

Preening 'Sanctuary' Mayor Melting Down Over Illegal Immigration Crisis in His City

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  January 02, 2024 10:15 AM

As a certain infamous pastor in Chicago once bellowed, the city's chickens 'are coming home to roost.'  The Windy City has long been a Democrat-dominated place, proudly declaring itself a 'sanctuary' for illegal immigrants against supposedly cruel federal enforcement mechanisms.  After lurching into deeper dysfunction under a failed mayor in Lori Lightfoot, Chicagoans saw fit to elect an even more left-wing, pro-criminal individual to helm their city's leadership.  The tenure of Brandon Johnson has gone, well, predictably.  A career teachers union agitator, he's announced that he's breaking a campaign pledge and seeking to further destroy public schools by eliminating gifted programs, which his ideological tribe has deemed an affront to 'equity.'  Johnson has made public excuses for lawbreakers.  

He's chided New York City's Democrats for insensitivity on the illegal immigration crisis, vowing that Chicago will not be overwhelmed by the challenge.  Since then, he's gone to political war with members of his own city council who want to repeal Chicago's sanctuary status, given widespread anger among residents over the influx of migrants.  Voters have gotten what they asked for, nice and hard, and Johnson's approval rating has slid into the 20's.  And how's his self-righteous preening on immigration going?  Not very well:

The mayors of three of the biggest cities in the country – including Chicago – met Wednesday to discuss the migrant crisis each is facing. As CBS 2's Marybel González reported, Mayor Brandon Johnson on Wednesday said Chicago is almost at capacity with migrants, even as more asylum seekers were making their way to the suburbs and other towns and villages in the area. New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston both said they will take a page from Chicago's book, as the leaders of those cities likewise said they are at a tipping point.  Not only are they running out of housing and resources, but they are still dealing with unannounced buses arriving every single day – and more expected to come. "All of our cities have reached a point where we are either close to capacity, or nearly out of room," said Mayor Johnson.

Here's the thing: 'Sanctuary' cities don't get to just declare themselves full.  They don't get to decree that no more migrants may enter their borders.  Do they think border communities and towns have more space and resources for the crush of humanity that floods into their streets on an hourly basis?  If restrictions don't apply to the nation's borders, thanks to the pro-illegal-immigration policies they support, they certainly don't apply to their municipal borders.  It's not acceptable for these jurisdictions to undermine enforcement and encourage illegal immigration, then demand exemptions from the consequences when a fraction of the mess is delivered to their doorsteps.  Texas should ignore Eric Adams:


Gosh, why hasn't, say, El Paso just announced they're full? Texas should also ignore this desperate blame-storming by Brandon Johnson, and send far more planes and buses to Chicago:  


It's unclear whether Johnson has ever taken a single moment to contemplate the glaring irony and hypocrisy of his gripes.  Does he think Texas gets warnings when thousands of illegal immigrants cross into the state every single day?  In fact, as Texas tries to stop and disincentivize this onslaught, they're being legally harassed and persecuted by the federal government, run by Johnson's party.  And if Chicago's "values" entail the sanctuary ethos, shouldn't Johnson welcome endless streams of migrants into his waiting, open arms?  He has no good answers for any of this, so he's reduced to play the stupid, lazy card of blaming a Republican governor for daring to export a fraction of the lawless chaos Johnson supports to Johnson's city.  It's pathetic, really.

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Relatedly, Johnson has a big political problem on his hands with this crisis, and perhaps the only way to make any progress with the failed Biden administration is for that political problem to get much worse.  After all, Chicago is hosting the Democratic National Convention later this year.  It would be a fitting tribute to the president and his party for the town to be overrun with illegal immigrants and roiled by internal blue-on-blue dissent.  Make it as painful as possible for them, and as difficult as possible to pull a San-Francisco-For-Xi-style magic glow-up.  Yes, this is punitive.  Yes, it's also necessary.  The overall crisis -- already at a record-setting boil throughout the Biden years -- has actually gotten worse.  Since the fiscal year began, the numbers are staggering (even by Biden standards), with December racking up the worst statistics of any month, ever.  "We are now at over 760,000 migrant encounters since October 1st, making the first quarter of fiscal year 2024 also the highest ever recorded:"


Those are merely the official stats, not counting the tens of thousands of monthly known and unknown 'got-aways' who enter the country.  The US government has no clue who those people are, or where they are.  We're talking about nearly 2 million people in the 'known got-away' category alone since this administration took office.  Again, staggering:


And the administration's focus is on amnesty, apparently -- an even more powerful magnet for more illegal immigration:


More shattered records. An ongoing national disgrace. And they're meeting with the Mexicans about amnesty options.  Astounding.  Keep those buses rolling and the planes flying, Texas.  It's one of the only factors forcing the pain to be felt by the ruling party and their press allies.  In addition to New York and Chicago, may I also recommend a surge of migrant relocations to this sanctuary state, which has decided that taxpayers will foot the bill for illegal immigrants' health insurance.  Let them live out the ramifications for their march toward "progress:"

Cash-strapped California will ring in the new year by offering free health care to all undocumented immigrants who qualify for the state’s government-run health insurance program. The state, which faces a $68 billion deficit in the next fiscal year, has been steadily expanding access to its Medi-Cal health insurance program for low-income residents, allowing undocumented children to qualify for the taxpayer-funded program in 2015, then expanding it under Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom to cover undocumented adults between the ages of 19-25 and those over 50. On Jan. 1, California will become the first state to offer free health care to all qualifying individuals — regardless of immigration status or age. 

I'll leave you with the media doing its thing:


America's absentee Border Czar will surely like this ostensible 'root cause.'