Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is asking Texas Governor Greg Abbott not to send any more unlawful migrants to her city.
Lightfoot wrote a letter to Abbott on Sunday in which she condemned his decision to bus unlawful migrants to other states.
“The City of Chicago is aware that the State of Texas is planning to resume busing individuals and families to Cities throughout the United States, including Chicago, starting Monday, May 1st,” she wrote before asking Abbott to “stop this inhumane and dangerous action.”
Chicago is a self-identified “sanctuary city,” which is defined by Oxford Languages as “a city whose municipal laws tend to protect undocumented immigrants from deportation or prosecution, despite federal law.”
Lightfoot claimed that while Chicago maintains this status, Governor Abbott’s “lack of consideration or coordination in an attempt to cause chaos and score political points has resulted in a critical tipping point in our ability to receive individuals and families in a safe, orderly, and dignified way.”
Chicago has “shouldered the responsibility of caring for more than 8,000” unlawful migrants since the Texas governor first began busing them to the city in August last year, according to Lightfoot.
In El Paso, one of the most affected border cities in Texas, as many as 1,000 unlawful migrants per day have been reported in peak periods during that same time, according to the city’s migrant crisis dashboard.
“We simply have no more shelters, spaces, or resources to accommodate an increase of individuals at this level, with little coordination or care, that does not pose a risk to them or others,” Lightfoot said.
Lightfoot said she is “sympathetic to the significant challenges that border cities face” but insisted that “the national immigration problem will not be solved by passing on the responsibility to other cities.”
The Chicago mayor said she would ask the federal government to withhold FEMA funding from Texas “if chartered buses resume coming to our city.”
The Dallas Express reached out to Governor Abbott’s office for comment and was directed to a press release published on Monday.
The governor wrote to Lightfoot, “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.”
“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,” he continued. “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 said.
Ken Oliver, senior director of engagement and Right on Immigration for the Texas Public Policy Foundation told The Dallas Express that Lightfoot’s argument “actually validates the State of Texas’ action to displace migrants who are a tremendous burden.”
“The state cannot bear the entire burden,” he argued. “It needs to responsibly share the burden with fellow citizens around the country to the extent it can.”
Oliver said he believes it “doesn’t make sense” for Chicago to stake itself as a sanctuary city while Lightfoot claims the city has no more capacity for migrants.
“I don’t think she’s part of the solution because she says these are people seeking safety and refuge while we know that most of these people are scamming the U.S. asylum system’s loopholes,” he asserted.
He specifically called out Lightfoot for “threatening fellow American citizens in Texas” by asking FEMA to withhold disaster relief funds from the state.
“That seems to be especially cruel by the mayor,” he suggested, adding that the “one she needs to be talking to” is the Biden administration regarding “shutting the policies down that have created the crisis in the first place.”
Governor Abbott has previously defended his practice of busing unlawful migrants to sanctuary cities.
“Texas has bused more than 16,300 migrants to sanctuary cities to relieve communities overwhelmed by President Biden’s open border policies,” he tweeted in January.
In December, Abbott explained that he sends unlawful migrants “to locations that self-identified as sanctuary cities that have the capability and the desire to help out these migrants.”