State is Bungling Migrant Response
The site of the proposed migrant tent city in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood, which Governor Pritzker scrapped Tuesday. (Photo: Chicago Tribune)
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OPINION
Tuesday’s action by Governor JB Pritzker to stop construction of a tent city for asylum seekers on a lot in the Brighton Park neighborhood on Chicago’s southwest side and Mayor Brandon Johnson’s subsequent finger pointing shows Democrats are woefully unprepared for handling the influx of migrants into Chicago and the rest of the state.
Pritzker pulled the plug after multiple toxic substances were found in the soil of the open lot.
“My administration is committed to keeping asylum-seekers safe as we work to help them achieve independence,” Pritzker said in a statement. “We will not proceed with housing families on a site where serious environmental concerns are still present. My administration remains committed to a data-driven plan to improve the asylum-seeker response and we will continue to coordinate with the City of Chicago as we work to expand available shelter through winter.”
But, in a statement later in the day, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who looks more clueless than you would have even expected when he was elected in April, blamed the state for not sharing more detailed requirements for the quality of the soil in the lot.
“Despite being made aware of the above assessment and remediation process, the State provided no additional guidance on its preferred methodology or assessment criteria, nor raised any concerns about its own decision to move forward with construction,” the mayor’s statement said.
That comes after the city withheld an environmental report from the public, and the Governor’s office, for days.
The theatrics notwithstanding, the comical response from the city and state has been an embarrassment. We knew winter was coming and we knew the federal government wasn’t going to do its job. (Reminder: these migrants are here legally seeking asylum from mostly South American countries, and are not “illegal” or “undocumented” immigrants.)
Governor Pritzker got a little snippy with me last week when I questioned him if the state response was “too little, too late” when temperatures already dropped well below freezing in late November.
But now it’s obvious, either out of spite or an inability to make a decision, the Governor’s office left the Mayor flailing for too long before it stepped in. Either reason is unacceptable.
Not to mention the hypocrisy of the Governor’s office, those of “welcome the migrants with open arms” created a flyer to try to dissuade migrants from coming to Illinois.
The Governor’s office has also been less than transparent about where the $160 million he committed for the migrant crisis. They haven’t released the line items publicly, his spokesperson and the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget (GOMB) aren’t responding. And Pritzker shot back at the transparency question last week claiming I was the only one complaining about it.
“It’s very concerning,” House Republican Leader Tony McCombie (R-Savanna) told me in a radio interview this weekend. “This is not a new thing. Ever since the start of COVID, the executive rule has been a real issue. There has to be a balance and we in the House and Senate are a part of that balance. We need to be a part of those conversations.”
We don’t know how much state money was spent on the start-then-stop construction of the tent city, but we’ll be filing a FOIA request on that question.
If there are any grown ups in the room, it’s time for them to take charge because this response has been embarrassing.
