Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson blamed his predecessor, Lori Lightfoot, along with "right-wing extremism" for the chaos in the city caused by the migrant crisis.
On Tuesday, Johnson insisted that he "inherited" Chicago's ongoing migrant issue and accused conservatives of unfairly caricaturing the city as a crime-ridden metropolis. He said that it was abysmal and an insult to everything good about the United States for extremism to use people as political tools.
Chicago City's Migrant Crisis
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson blamed his predecessor, Lori Lightfoot, and right-wing extremism for the city's migrant crisis.
Johnson argued that everybody knows that right-wing extremism in the United States has targeted Democratically-run cities. He added that it was also intentional that they focused on Democratically-run cities that people of color lead.
The Chicago mayor said their motivation was only to create disruption and chaos. He noted that it was the same Republican right-wing extremism that led to the siege of the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021. He claimed that it was also the same right-wing extremism that refused to accept the result of the Civil War, as per the New York Post.
The mayor's remarks come as the most recent year-to-date statistics from the Chicago Police Department showed that overall crime complaints have surged by 19%, motor vehicle theft by 47%, and robbery by 25%. Notably, however, murders have dropped by 12% during that period.
Since August 2022, the city has seen more than 20,000 migrants coming in, partly due to a busing system that was implemented by other states, including Texas, to move them to sanctuary cities.
The rise in migrant travels has overwhelmed Chicago's social services and roughly 68,000 residents of the city are now estimated to be homeless. Johnson, however, credited himself for the "Unity Initiative," a campaign that seeks to shuffle migrants from public areas to churches and other locations for shelter.
Brandon Johnson's Unity Initiative
Chicago has long been struggling to find a place to house asylum seekers and has relied on police stations and O'Hare International Airport. Johnson said that his administration is now cooperating with 17 churches and announced the construction of the Brighton Part migrant camp, according to Fox News.
Johnson noted that when he was sworn in as Chicago's mayor in May, the previous City Council did not budget for 2023's migrant mission. He said that they not only stood up the full force of government collaboratively but also did it without the resources from the previous City Council.
Lightfoot was voted out of the run-off for Chicago's mayor earlier this year as voters voiced that crime was their main concern. Under her tenure, the city recorded 2,784 homicides and a total of 14,681 shooting incidents.
An associate pastor at Grace and Peace Church in Austin, John Zayas, said that the goal of the Unity Initiative is to start sending buses to police stations on Wednesday. He added that each church will take in 20 migrants and help connect them with social services and other resources to get them on the path to finding work and permanent homes, said CBS News.
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