A chill has hit the warm welcome Chicago once gave illegal immigrants now that they are showing up on the city’s doorstep in unwelcome numbers.
On Friday, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office announced that illegal immigrants staying at city-run shelters will be told to leave after 60 days, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The new policy will be phased in, first telling those who arrived last year to leave. A Dec. 4 notice will seek to boot illegal immigrants who arrived prior to August. On Feb. 1, the city will send out another round for those who checked in by Thursday.
After that, every new arrival will be told they have a 60-day window to live off the city’s dime.
Those bounced from a shelter can go back to so-called city “landing zones” to begin the process of being sheltered all over again.
“There are three anchors to this new phase in our plan: creating pathways to resettlement, community integration and reunification, creating jobs for Chicagoans in staffing the New Arrivals Mission, and building public infrastructure for the public good,” Johnson said in a statement.
“Above all, we are treating our new neighbors with compassion because it is the humane thing to do and because with support, they can become productive members of our communities, contributing to our economy, our culture and our society,” he said.
“We are addressing the anxiety and fear that people have, whether you are a taxpayer or whether you are someone who is seeking asylum in the city of Chicago,” Johnson said, according to WLS-TV.
He said his plan “puts some onus on all levels of government to help move with some expedition to get people to work.”
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WLS said its sources said the firm deadline might be flexible if illegal immigrants are believed to be looking to find housing and work.
Also last week, Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said the state was cutting rental assistance to illegal immigrants. Assistance will now be cut to three months, with none at all set aside for those arriving in Chicago after Friday.
State government decided that “it would be better to stretch those dollars to reach everyone that’s currently in the shelter system,” Kirstin Chernawsky of the Illinois Department of Human Services said Friday.
Johnson said there is no policy change afoot even though more than 21,000 illegal immigrants have come to Chicago in the past year.
“We will always be a sanctuary city,” he said, according to WMAO-TV.
Chicago residents sound off on illegal immigrants in neighborhood: ‘They disrespect us, rob us, harass us’ https://t.co/TWErtSDcyI
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But some City Council members want the people of Chicago to weigh in on changing all that. Some representatives want a referendum on the city’s sanctuary city status that was imposed by Mayor Harold Washington in 1985, according to Axios.
“When … Harold Washington did this, times were different. We didn’t have people coming into this city by the thousands,” Alderman Anthony Beale said last week.
He said the proposed referendum would be “a non-binding question to ask the people who are paying $30 and $40 million a month [for migrant services] if they want to continue down this road or do we want to make our elected officials try to do something different.”
