A Chicago resident who was arrested earlier this year when he tried to block buses of migrants in Chicago has slammed the city’s new $51 million immigrant aid package.
Andre Smith, 55, described the situation in Chicago as a ‘mess’ and demanded that city officials temporarily pause the sanctuary status of the city, which has been overwhelmed with over 10,000 migrants since August.
‘It’s just a mess here,’ he told Fox & Friends Weekend on Saturday.
‘We have in Chicago $160 million that was spent for the migrants with no records, no plan. And now we’re fixing to spend $51 million that was passed at city council with no record, no plan for 500 migrants for 30 days. That’s unheard of,’ he added.
Smith was also in attendance during the heated city hall meeting last week in which the package was debated and during which police had to remove members of the public.
Andre Smith, 55, who was arrested earlier this year when he tried to block buses of migrants from entering Chicago, has slammed the city’s new $51 million immigrant aid package
Smith called for Mayor Brandon Johnson, who assumed office last month, to pause the sanctuary city status of Chicago
‘Never has it been done before. 500 migrants, $51 million. No plan of execution, so I’m calling for forensic audit,’ Smith said.
‘I’m calling for a sanctuary hold on this city, I’m calling for the mayor to freeze on what we call a sanctuary disaster.’
Smith suggested that some of the money earmarked for the migrant package should be invested in struggling black communities in Chicago.
‘When you look at all Memorial Day, we had 53 people shot in the city of Chicago, 11 killed. That’s just on Memorial Day weekend. So you can put that money to crime,’ he said.
The Chicago Police Department said that 53 people were shot in 42 separate incidents between 6 pm on Friday and 11.59pm on Monday, WTTW reported at the time. One person was also fatally stabbed.
Smith said his fight against city officials would go on.
‘I waited 55 years to get arrested by stopping a bus of migrants to go into a school the taxpayers pay for,’ he said. ‘The fight will continue. Going to jail or not, we’re going to fight,’ he added.
At least three people, including Smith, were arrested while protesting the Chicago’s decision to move migrants into a former Woodlawn school building in February, Block Club Chicago reported.
In May furious residents of Chicago filed a lawsuit against the city after it announced plans to house illegal immigrants in a disused high school in the South Side.
The old South Shore High School was expected to become a temporary holding space for up to 500 migrants, but officials were unable to clarify at the time for how long.
More than 10,000 migrants have flooded the city since buses started arriving from the US-Mexico border in August and some have had to resort to sleeping in police stations as Chicago ran out of housing options.
Officials have pleaded for more financial help for the migrant crisis, but others demanded the money should go to other places neighborhoods.
‘We need to allocate some of this money for our black children, for the black community,’ a member of the public stated during the meeting last week.
During a dramatic session last Wednesday lawmakers in Chicago voted in favor of a temporary $51 million package to manage the city’s escalating migrant crisis. Pictured is an animated man addressing council members
The funding, which passed 43-13, is only to last until June and is designed to help Mayor Brandon Johnson adjust to the crisis he inherited from previous mayor, Lori Lightfoot
The new funding, which passed 43 votes to 13 last week, is only to last until June and designed to help Mayor Brandon Johnson, who assumed office just two weeks ago, navigate a crisis he inherited from the outgoing mayor, Lori Lightfoot.
In her final days as mayor, she declared the migrant situation in Chicago a ‘state of emergency’. Officials have said they cannot afford to rent hotel rooms for the migrants, who have arrived in the city and with nowhere else to go, started filling police stations.
The new money will be spent on staffing, food, transportation and legal services at temporary shelters, in the hopes it will ease the city’s crisis.
Alderman Jason Ervin, the budget committee chairman, told ABC7 the city is going to have to come up with a plan for the long term, and that the money is primarily intended to give Johnson’s administration breathing room.
‘There does need to be a greater plan and I do think this was always designed to give the incoming administration time to do that. This is a stop-gap measure, pure and simple,’ he said after the proposal passed.
Much of the debate on Wednesday afternoon was racially charged and considered black Chicagoans and Hispanic migrants as two separate groups in need.
‘We need to allocate some of this money for our black children, for the black community,’ shouted one member of the public.
However, some speakers encouraged taking a less divisive view.
‘We have to help the residents of this big city. It’s not an either-or. It’s both,’ Alderman David Moore for the 17th Ward said.
Jeanette Taylor of the 20th Ward (pictured) was reduced to tears while pleading with people to empathize with the migrants despite feeling that the city was neglecting black communities
Jeanette Taylor of the 20th Ward was reduced to tears when she addressed the crowd, which went on to applaud her remarks.
‘We fight just to drink out of a damn fountain, but hurt people don’t hurt other hurt people,’ she said.
Chicago Republican Party chairman Steve Boulton criticized the funding outright.
‘We don’t know where that money is coming from,’ he said. ‘We are not being told where that money is going to be spent. We are not being told how it is being spent.
‘It is irresponsible for the City Council to appropriate what is no more than stop-gap money that will get us through a month or two and then the problem will still be staring at us in the face.’
Alderman Maria Hadden of the 49th Ward voted in favor of the extra funding but asked community members to think about black residents too.
‘Everybody that is working hard for this, you have to show up for black Chicagoans with the same energy, and that does mean money,’ Hadden said during the meeting.
Videos and photos in recent weeks have shown hallways in some Chicago precincts lined with mattresses and the personal belongings of migrants
Chicago is one of several Democratic-run cities where southern states have bused migrants as the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border grows
Videos and photos in recent weeks have shown hallways in some Chicago precincts lined with mattresses and the personal belongings of migrants.
Chicago is one of several Democratic-run cities where southern states have bused migrants as the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border grows.
Footage posted by photojournalist Rebecca Brannon showed dozens of migrants sitting on and around mattresses in a Chicago police station.
Brannon reported many of the migrants had slept and eaten on the floors, which has interfered with the day-to-day police activities.
More than 10,000 migrants have arrived in Chicago since August, which is when southern states started to bus asylum seekers north. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sent migrants to the Democrat-led cities to help ease the burden on border towns.
‘To provide much-needed relief to our overrun border communities, Texas began busing migrants to sanctuary cities such as your ‘Welcoming City,’ along with Washington, DC, New York City, and Philadelphia, with more to come.
‘Until Biden secures the border to stop the inflow of mass migration, Texas will continue this necessary program,’ Abbott noted in a letter in May.
Migrants have been sent to cities such as Chicago, Philadelphia and New York. Migrants have also arrived in Washington, DC, with buses stopping outside the home of Vice President Kamala Harris.
