With temperatures in Chicago ready to drop below zero, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker wrote to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday, pleading with him to stop sending migrants to the city.
“While federal action is pending, I beg your pardon for the thousands of people who are unable to speak for themselves.” “Please, suspend your transports and do not send more people to our state while winter threatens vulnerable people’s lives,” Pritzker pleaded, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
According to the city, Chicago has received an estimated 34,562 migrants since Abbott and other governors of states near the southern border began busing them north, claiming that the federal government’s inaction on illegal immigration is taxing their resources.
Abbott’s “Operation Lone Star” has previously been described as a “cheap political stunt” by Pritzker.
“Your callousness, sending buses and planes full of migrants in this weather, is now life-threatening to every one of the arrivals,” Pritzker said in a letter to the editor. “Hundreds of children’s and families’ health and survival are at risk due to your actions.”
Pritzker also stated that his administration is developing strategies to discourage more flights transporting migrants from Texas to Illinois.
“In general, you can’t tell a group of people or an aircraft that it can’t come somewhere,” he remarked. “On the other hand, there are lots of things that I think would be a significant deterrent and they are already working.”
Recently, migrants who were supposed to be bused to Chicago from Rockford’s airport were dumped off across Chicagoland, causing suburban governments to scurry to recover control of a developing crisis.
While a statewide strategy might help decrease uncertainty and streamline migrant travel, Pritzker has been skeptical of the state’s ability to put one in place.
This week, the state opened its first migrant shelter as part of a $160 million investment that also includes an intake center and heated tents for migrants within the city’s “landing zone” at 800 S. Desplaines Street, which is designed to process migrants and assist them in advancing to other destinations.
Chicago is one of several cities in the US that has declared itself a “sanctuary” for noncitizens and refuses to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.