A Chicago suburb turned away busloads of migrants – enacting a $750 fine for each allowed to step off the bus – as the Windy City buckles under weight of new arrivals.
Several buses with migrants arrived in Metra stations in Cicero and in Rosemont near O’Hare International Airport’s remote parking, from El Paso, Texas, this week, where officials said they were then turned away and banned from entering.
Police reportedly allowed the migrants to descend from the buses if they had someone waiting for them, but threatened to impound the bus and arrest the driver for endangering the passengers if he let them out, Mayor Brad Stephens said.
A $750 fine per person was approved in Cicero imposed on any person who lets a migrant off the bus, spokesman Ray Hanania said to the Chicago Tribune.
‘It’s wrong to drop people on the street with nowhere to go,’ Hanania said. ‘We think every community should do this to prevent this. They need to force the state to come up with a better plan for homeless people.’
Busloads of migrants were turned away after they arrived in Metra stations in Cicero and in Rosemont near O’Hare International Airport’s remote parking
Police reportedly threatened to impound the bus and arrest the driver for endangering the passengers if he let them out, Mayor Brad Stephens said
A $750 fine per person was approved in Cicero imposed on any person who lets a migrant off the bus, spokesman Ray Hanania said to the Chicago Tribune. Pictured: Migrant children occupy their time in a small tent community, Wednesday,
In November, Rosemont Mayor Brad Stephens announced a new tax as part of the effort aimed at preventing long-term migrant stays and preserve the middle-income town’s convention business.
Since August 2022, Chicago accepted nearly 26,000 migrants who are now sheltered around Chicago, including at police stations.
This comes just one day after it was announced that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has begun filing dozens of lawsuits against ‘rogue’ bus companies transporting migrants from the southern border.
At least 55 lawsuits have been filed by the city since it implemented the laws regarding when and where buses are authorized to arrive November, the Chicago Tribune reported.
The lawsuits identify 77 buses accused of violating the regulations which is come cases involve fines.
Buses were limited to only two per hour, and drop-offs were set between 8am and 5:30 pm Monday through Friday.
A man and woman stand in the late morning sun near their tent in a small migrant community Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2023, near a Northside police station in Chicago
The Mayor’s spokesperson called the busses ‘rogue’ and ‘uncoordinated’ and claimed they are endangering the lives of newly arriving migrants.
In a statement, Cassio Mendoza, said the bus companies should be held accountable.
Chicago ‘continues to welcome asylum-seekers but the city cannot safely and efficiently shelter migrants when bus companies, contracted by the State of Texas, flagrantly violate all safety measures that the city has put in place,’ he said.
In October, it was revealed that Texas has bused nearly 52,000 migrants to Dem-run cities, including 18,500 to New York and 13,500 to Chicago.
Gov. Greg Abbott said at the time that he would not stop sending the migrant buses north and that Texas ‘is going to continue to use every tool that we can to secure the border the best that we can.’
In addition to the migrant surge, crime is spiking in the windy city – causing mounting pressures for Mayor Johnson.
Four people are dead after a weekend of violence in Chicago saw at least 22 shot and no-one arrested for any of the murders.
It came as the latest police figures showed crimes up by 68 per cent on this time two years ago in the Democrat-led city.
Democrat Mayor Brandon Johnson has overseen a 19 percent rise in Chicago’s crime this year
The shootings were double the 11 recorded the previous weekend and began on Friday with the gunning down of an 18-year-old man found shot to death at 9pm inside a car in the Englewood district.
That evening saw two off-duty police officers robbed at gunpoint in the nearby South Loop district where 32-year-old Corey Ivy was found shot dead in his SUV on Saturday.
It made grim reading for the mayor of a city where more than 300 people have been murdered since he took office on May 15 on a promise to build ‘a better, stronger, safer Chicago’.
An hour after the 18-year-old was found dead, Ismael Yanez, 42, was shot in the head while driving in Archer Heights.
The father-of-three was pronounced dead in hospital.
Little over three hours later a gunfight in the street left three people shot and one dead on the city’s Northwest Side.
A 31-year-old man was in the 1600 block of North Hamlin Avenue at around 1.17am when two men drove up and began shooting at him.
Their target, who has a concealed carry license holder, returned fire shooting one of his attackers in the chest, killing 44-year-old Edwin Lopez instantly.
Robbery is up by a half this year alone while motor vehicle thefts have tripled since 2020
Four were dead and another 18 injured after the latest weekend of shootings in the Windy City
His other attacker was expected to survive after being shot in the shoulder, while the 31-year-old target was shot in the torso and taken to a hospital in ‘fair condition’, police said.
But you only have to go back to late November to find a more deadly weekend, when six people were shot dead between Friday 17 and Sunday 19.
Johnson previously supported the Defund the Police movement and has been widely criticized for a soft-on-crime approach.
He made history when he was elected as the first person to unseat a presiding mayor in the Dem-led city since 1983, pledging to make the city a place where ‘all residents can live and work free from the threat of violence’.
Johnson’s radical approach to policing involves reallocating funds from enforcement to social services like housing and education, while taxing the rich and local businesses.
But the former union organizer said the city doesn’t have the money to solve its problem because ’70 percent of large corporations in the state of Illinois don’t pay a corporate tax’.
‘It’s that type of restraint on our budget that has caused the type if disinvestment that has led to poverty, of course that has led to violence,’ he added.