Abbott’s vow came in a letter to Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot. The two leaders are feuding amid an anticipated migrant surge from the upcoming end to Title 42 border expulsions.
CHICAGO — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told Chicago’s Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Monday that he would not stop relocating migrants to her city, despite her pleading with him to halt the action.
Lightfoot, a Democrat, complained in a letter on Sunday that the city does not have the resources to keep up with the flow of people. Some of them are now being kept in public spaces like police stations, until shelter is available.
In response letter on Monday, the Republican Texas governor told Lightfoot to take her complaint to President Joe Biden, laying at his doorstep the responsibility of an ongoing border crisis.
“To provide much-needed relief to our overrun border communities, Texas began busing migrants to sanctuary cities such as your ‘Welcoming City,’ along with Washington, D.C., New York City, and Philadelphia, with more to come. Until Biden secures the border to stop the inflow of mass migration, Texas will continue this necessary program,” Abbott wrote.
Lightfoot traveled to the White House in mid-April and specifically brought up the need for federal funding to accommodate an influx of migrants into Chicago, a person familiar with the conversation said. That person added that Lightfoot specifically talked to Julie Chavez Rodriguez, the director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs who was just tapped to serve as campaign manager for Biden’s re-election.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Abbott and Lightfoot both stated in a recent letter exchange that an already untenable flow of migrants would only be exacerbated by the end of a Covid ban on migrants, known as Title 42, which ends on May 11.
The dust-up between the two elected leaders is just one way that the end of the Covid-era rule is expected to impact not just border towns but cities deep in the heart of the country. Border officials have already warned that they’re expecting a record surge of people across the border. Abbott is among the leaders who has sent border migrants to other cities, deeming that so-called “sanctuary cities” should have to grapple with the plight of border towns.
Lightfoot argued that federal resources flow into states like Texas to mitigate the financial impact of immigration, but that money is not following those bussed or flown to Chicago.
I will continue calling on the federal government for more resources and support, as well as much needed policy changes, just as I will call upon them to withhold all FEMA funding slated for Texas if chartered buses resume coming to our city,” Lightfoot wrote in her letter Sunday. “But I would rather work with you than against you. Governor Abbott, this is not a state v. state or city v. city problem. The immigration crisis is a national challenge that requires national collaboration.”
Chicago has been grappling with where to house migrants as social service groups complain they’re running out of space. The head of the Chicago Police Fraternal Order of Police said he filed a grievance on Monday complaining of the city housing migrants in police stations. Among the complaints the social service groups — and the city — have made about Abbott bussing of migrants is that there is a lack of coordination from his office, leaving no time or ability to accommodate the influx.
“Abbott was going out of his way to be an a–hole about it,” said Joshua Hoyt, board co-chair for the American Business Immigration Coalition, an immigration advocacy group. Hoyt had also done on-the-ground volunteering to assist with the influx of migrants.
Abbott’s office did not return a request a response to Hoyt’s remarks.
But in his letter, Abbott said Chicago’s issue is minimal when compared to Texas border towns.
“With Title 42 expulsions set to end next week, the federal government has estimated that we could have up to 13,000 illegal immigrants cross the U.S.–Mexico border every single day,” the governor wrote. “Some reports indicate that there are nearly 35,000 waiting to cross into El Paso as soon as Title 42 expulsions are no longer in effect. If Chicago can’t deal with 8,000 in less than a year, how are small Texas border communities supposed to manage 13,000 in just one day?”
On Monday, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, said in all, $200 million in state and federal funding has been committed to helping asylum seekers find housing and other accommodations.
“Resources are stretched,” Pritzker said at a Monday news conference. “I think that Gov. Abbott is doing what he thinks is the most political thing that he can do to cause problems in the country for Democratically-controlled states and cities and that’s why he’s doing it.”