For Chicago and Illinois, suicide is apparently preferable to the only real solution available – ending sanctuary status and demanding that the border be enforced.
Why?
Chicago already estimates it will spend over $300 million this year, but that’s just for the 13,500 migrants bused in from Texas. What about the rest of the millions pouring in, many of whom will surely make their way here? Total illegal immigration to the U.S. has been about 5.5 million in the last 2 1/2 years. Illinois share of those, based on its relative population, is another 220,000.
And the rate of illegal entries is accelerating. In August, even the Washington Post says a new record was reached for illegal border crossings, despite the summer heat that usually slows it down. Migrants who are here attract still more. According to Axios, people on the ground say immigrant arrivals create “a snowball effect,” leading more migrants to follow those who were placed on state-backed buses to major cities.
The surging number numbers are part of why the cost of Illinois’ decision to extend Medicaid benefits to migrants is also surging. That reckless decision is now officially estimated to cost the state $1 billion over the coming year, but nobody honestly knows since the number of incoming migrants is unknown.
The impact on education is shaping up as a calamity in itself. Last school year, as WTTW recently reported, over a fourth of students enrolled at Chicago Public Schools were English learners. Since then, WTTW says, an additional 1,200 students were enrolled over the summer, another 1,000 just since the beginning of this school year and more are on the way.
Beyond direct education costs for migrants, the other burdens on schools and other students is surely huge. Teacher time and school resources get diverted to language issues and other horrific problems immigrants face. Class progress slows. “Kids are showing up with rotting teeth and active fevers and malnutrition and they’re not receiving care here,” an assistance worker told the Chicago Tribune.
Yet immigrant children are not required to get the same vaccines that schools require for citizens, infuriating parents in Chicago.
In some other states, Democrats and Republicans alike are saying “enough.” New Jersey’s Democrat Gov. Phil Murphy flipped against his previous efforts to be a “sanctuary state” and is refusing to take in immigrants as proposed by the Biden Administration. The New York Times last week published an article headlined, “New York’s Migrant Crisis Is Growing. So Are Democrats’ Anxieties.”
And New York City Mayor Eric Adams last week made headlines around the country for saying the inflow of migrants will “destroy the city.” “Never in my life have I had a problem that I did not see an ending to. I don’t see an ending to this,” Adams said.
What solutions are being pursued by Mayor Brandon Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker?
Winterized camps with massive tents form Johnson’s latest plan. They’ve begged for a federal bailout, as you’d expect, and they want expedited work permits for migrants. They say Illinois has a worker shortage the immigrants can fill. But Illinois has the nation’s fourth highest unemployment rate at four percent. Shouldn’t citizens be expected to take the jobs going unfilled?
The futility of those cosmetic solutions makes the real question obvious: Why? Why won’t Johnson, Pritzker and the rest of Illinois leadership publicly recognize that the border must be enforced and that sanctuary status for illegal migrants is folly?
The best clue to the answer comes is in a recent ABC News report about New York. There, Democrats worry that frank talk about the border “will end up feeding and validating right wing talking points,” ABC says. One has to assume that’s at work in Illinois as well — that political concerns about reversing course and sounding Trumpy are more important than fixing the problem. Progressives like Biden, Pritzker and Johnson are totally invested in sanctuary and a border that’s all but open.
They labeled “build the wall” as racist and xenophobic, so now they are stuck. Mayor Adams’ lament that he sees no way to end the crisis therefore may have more truth than he knew, because enforcing the border is off that table for those in office.
Have compassion for immigrants. Help even those who were wrongly admitted. Support lots of legal immigration if you want. But make no mistake: Illinois and Chicago, like the rest of the nation, cannot handle the consequences of an open border, particularly when “sanctuary” policies draw immigrants in.
Just don’t expect Illinois leadership to admit it.