Brandon Johnson has blasted Greg Abbott for flying migrants to the Windy City – despite previously painting it as a haven for the undocumented.
The ultra progressive Democratic mayor laid into the Texas Governor for being ‘determined to continue to sow seeds of chaos’ by sending them his way.
He also tried to pass off the city’s spiraling migrant crisis as Abbott’s fault for a lack of coordination in the moving of them.
It comes just months after he claimed on the campaign trial in March that Chicago would have no migrant problem if he was elected.
‘Chicago must lead with and live by the promise to be a sanctuary city. Longtime Chicagoans don’t have to lose for new arrivals to gain – there’s enough space at the table for all of us to sit and eat. Immigrants are welcome here,’ he wrote on March 10.
Chicago ‘s progressive Mayor Brandon Johnson is being called out for painting the Windy City as welcoming to migrants as he continues to blame Texas Governor Greg Abbott for causing chaos by shipping them to his city
Johnson has blamed others for the crisis, however, in a post made while he was campaigning for mayor in March, he made it clear that he felt Chicago would have no problem taking the migrants in
One user on X wrote after the post resurfaced: ‘This tweet didn’t age well did it? Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson better buy a bigger table if he’s still planning on feeding all those migrants.’
On Sunday in front of CBS’ Face the Nation, Johnson continued to complain about the havoc he said Abbott had caused him, calling the governor ‘afraid and mad’.
‘What we have said repeatedly is that we need Congress to act to provide the resources that are needed in order to carry out this mission,’ Johnson said.
‘But what we can’t have is a governor in the state of Texas, acting the way he is acting and quite frankly, the rogue buses that are being dropped off across this country in the middle of the night, leaving people with no real support at all, no coordination with the local municipalities.’
He then accused Abbott of dividing Americans against one another over the crisis.
‘That type of chaos, it’s certainly dividing our country, and we need better coordination between all levels of government to be able to respond to this mission.’
‘This is certainly a matter of, not just of our national security, but it’s the type of chaos that this governor is committed to administering,’ Johnson added.
Renae Eze, a spokesman for Abbott, called out Johnson and Denver Mayor Mike Johnson – who appeared with him in the interview – over their hypocrisy.
Johnson, a Democrat , has blamed everyone from his predecessor Lori Lightfoot to the Biden Administration and Texas Republicans for his city struggling to care for thousands of migrants
A migrant flight from San Antonio to Illinois lands at the Chicago Rockford International Airport
A man walks through a small tent community for migrants on the Northside of Chicago
22-year-old Maria Silva, of Venezuela, carries her belongings to a bus outside the 6th District police station before being taken to a shelter with other migrants who had been staying
‘They are now going to extreme lengths to avoid fulfilling their self-declared sanctuary city promises, yet they remain silent as President Biden transports migrants all around the country and oftentimes in the cover of night,’ Eze said.
‘Instead of attacking Texas’ efforts to provide relief to our overwhelmed border communities, these Democrat mayors should call on their party leader to finally do his job and secure the border – something he continues refusing to do.’
Chicago has spent $138 million on the crisis that is only expected to get worse as temperatures drop as winter goes on.
Earlier Sunday on CNN, Johnson said about 15,000 asylum seekers were crammed into 27 shelters across the city after being bused in from the US-Mexico border, particularly Texas.
Abbott has sent more than 25,300 migrants to Chicago since August 2022, on buses and more recently on charter flights.
About 10,000 migrants are crossing the border every day and many of them are sent to ‘sanctuary cities’ like Chicago, New York, and Denver.
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Chicago has spent $138 million on the crisis that is only expected to get worse as temperatures drop as winter goes on
Johnson said he appreciated the federal government handing out work permits to get immigrants into jobs so they could support themselves.
But he warned: ‘Without significant investment from our federal government, it won’t just be the city of Chicago that won’t be able to maintain this mission.
‘It’s the entire country that is now at stake.’
He shot another barb at Joe Biden by calling for ‘real, substantive immigration reform and policies that allow us to have a structure and a pathway to citizenship’.
The mayor claimed since he was elected seven months ago, poor coordination between federal, state, and local government had made the crisis worse.
‘What I’ve worked to do instead of having chaos is provide some structure and calm around this situation and without significant federal support. This is not sustainable,’ he said.
‘We’re talking about individuals who have suffered miles, thousands of miles of treachery, quite frankly, to get to the border.
‘And so what we’ve seen… is that lack of coordination has caused tremendous stress.’
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has blamed both the Biden Administration and Texas for his city struggling to care with thousands of migrants
Johnson said about 15,000 asylum-seekers were crammed into shelters across the city after being bused in from the US-Mexico border, particularly Texas
Hundreds of asylum seekers temporarily stay at the O’Hare International Airport in Chicago
An example included Abbott loading as many immigrants on to buses as he could and sending them to Illinois with no warning.
Chicago tried to have them arrive at designated locations during business hours and impounding buses that didn’t follow these rules.
However, bus companies responded by dropping off migrants as far as 60 miles from Chicago, and Abbott started sending them on charter flights.
Texas spent $86.1 million so far sending migrants to ‘sanctuary cities’ around the country, about $1,650 per person.
‘In no way what the state of Texas is doing is helping the cause,’ Johnson said last week.
‘As much as we recognize there are significant challenges at the border… sending buses all over Illinois and all over the country is reckless and, quite frankly, dangerous.’
A young migrant girl eagerly shows what she made from the overnight snowfall, in a small tent community in Chicago
Chicago’s mayor claimed since he was elected seven months ago, poor coordination between federal, state, and local government had made the crisis worse
Johnson was joined by New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston later on Wednesday for a coordinated attack on both Texas and the federal government.
‘We cannot do this alone, we need more support from the federal government and today we stand charged and committed to ensure that our respective cities do our part and we need the federal government to lean in and provide more financial assistance,’ he said.
‘All of our cities have reached a point where we are either close to capacity or nearly out of room.
‘Without significant intervention from the federal government, this mission will not be sustained.’
Johnson said the haphazard arrival of ‘rogue buses’ from Texas had ‘created an incredible amount of chaos’ that was damaging local economies.
‘[They are] literally dropping families in the middle of nowhere,’ he said.
‘These families have experienced a great deal of political turmoil, trekking hundreds of thousands of miles to get to the border without real care or processing and without a system in place.
‘The rogue buses, and now chartered flights, is not only unsafe but inhumane. So we are calling on not just the federal government to provide support and resources to address this humanitarian crisis, we also need better coordination at the border.
Migrants are seen lining up in El Paso on Dec. 19 to board the plane to Chicago
Officials from the City of El Paso have been working with state officials to bus over 17,000 migrants out of the West Texas city
‘The state of Texas has a responsibility to connect with municipalities around the country to help address and deal with this crisis.’
Mayor Adams backed him up on both points, urging Abbott to stop ‘using migrants as political pawns’ but also on Biden to do far more to help.
‘We cannot continue to do the federal government’s job… we need action and we need it now,’ he said.
‘This is a national problem that has only been exacerbated by Governor Abbott’s cruel and inhumane politics and that requires additional, national solutions.
‘The federal government must take responsibility and lead on this humanitarian crisis instead of leaving it to cities and localities to handle.’
Conditions in Chicago’s migrant shelters have been under a microscope since five-year-old boy Jean Carlo Martinez Rivero died on December 17.
Johnson maintained there was ‘no evidence the condition of the shelter caused the death of this young boy’.
Volunteers who try to help the asylum-seekers as best they can argue differently, submitting lists of concerns to city officials months before Jean’s death.
Photos and videos inside the shelter where he died showed 2,300 migrants huddled together in freezing temperatures under a leaking roof.
One video showed a young boy with what appeared to be a bandage on his head lying on a thin fold-out bed, distracting himself with a tablet.
Another shows a different child coughing and crying as they had their temperature taken and were examined by volunteers.
A third video showed water leaking from the roof and pooling on one of the beds.
Despite strict ordinances penalizing charter buses loaded with migrants heading into Illinois, buses and planes with migrants are bound for Chicago as we speak, El Paso officials confirmed to DailyMail.com.
Five-year-old Jean Carlo Martinez Rivero fell ill while at the Pilsen migrant shelter and was pronounced dead on arrival in hospital on Sunday days later
Last week, the Texas Division of Emergency Management or TDEM, which handles migrant transports, chartered its first flight with migrants to Chicago to avoid growing restrictions over when and where migrants can be dropped off.
‘TDEM basically flipped it; they said if we’re going to have problems with buses, we are going to send flights,’ John Martin, who runs the Opportunity Center for the Homeless in El Paso, told DailyMail.com in an interview on Tuesday.
Migrants without money to move on to their final destination often opt to get on one of the Texas buses headed to so-called sanctuary cities.
They sign a waiver saying they voluntarily agree to get on and be taken to New York City, Chicago, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Denver, or Los Angeles.
From there, the state takes over.