Democratic Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot sent a letter to Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Sunday asking that he stop busing migrants from the southern border to her city.
Lightfoot said the city is out of space for migrants and emphasized the lack of coordination with the state of Texas, according to a copy of the letter her office shared on Twitter Sunday. Title 42, a public health expulsion order invoked by the Trump administration during the COVID-19 pandemic, is set to end May 11 and the Biden administration, along with some southern border towns, anticipate a massive surge in migrants. (RELATED: Massive Migrant Caravan Forms In Mexico To Protest Immigration Policies)
“Chicago is a Welcoming City and we continue to collaborate with County, State, and community partners to rise to this challenge. The lack of confederation or coordination in an attempt to cause chaos and score political points has resulted in a critical tipping point,” Lightfoot wrote on Twitter regarding the letter.
Today, @chicagosmayor sent a letter to Governor Greg Abbott urging his administration to stop the inhumane and dangerous action of bussing migrants to Chicago.
We are aware that Texas is planning to resume bussing individuals and families to cities including Chicago. pic.twitter.com/jvBYygcH9A
— Ryan Johnson (@Ryan_Johnson) April 30, 2023
Lightfoot mentioned in her letter to Abbott that he previously paused the original program he started in August to bus migrants to the Windy City, but that she had knowledge he would resume the program on May 1. Before then, he had been busing migrants to Washington, D.C. and New York.
“Mayor Lightfoot loves to tout the responsibility of her city to welcome all regardless of legal status, and I look forward to seeing this responsibility in action as these migrants receive resources from a sanctuary city with the capacity to serve them,” Abbott said in a statement when he first began busing migrants to Chicago.
Abbott responded in a letter to Lightfoot Monday.
“If you truly want to ‘work together to find a real solution’ to this border crisis gripping our nation, you must call on the Biden Administration to do its job by securing our border, repelling the illegal immigrants flooding into our communities, classifying the Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, and intercepting the deadly fentanyl that is endangering our country,” Abbott wrote in the letter.
“You are right that ‘this situation is completely untenable,’ but this is not a Texas problem—this is a problem for the entire United States of America. Texas began busing migrants to sanctuary cities such as your ‘Welcoming City,’ along with Washington, D.C., New York City, and Philadelphia, to provide much-needed relief to our overrun border communities. Until President Biden secures the border to stop the inflow of mass migration, Texas will continue this necessary program,” Abbott wrote.
Lightfoot was critical of the effort from the start, calling it “unpatriotic and un-American,” while Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker declared a state of emergency over the surge in migrant arrivals.
Chicago has received more than 8,000 migrants since Abbott began his effort, according to Lightfoot’s letter. Meanwhile, between August and March, Border Patrol has recorded more than 1.4 million migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics.
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