(National Review) Build the wall” hasn’t been a sentiment often heard in South Side Chicago.
But someone held a sign calling for the barrier, while other residents shouted “Close the border” and the like, during a community meeting in South Shore about a former high school potentially getting turned into a facility for immigrants lacking permanent legal status.
The busing of migrants from border states to big cities has been an enormous political success for Republicans seeking to focus attention on President Joe Biden’s policies that have failed to stop — indeed, have affirmatively encouraged — a massive surge of illegal immigration.
It has made the border an issue in places far removed from the border.
It has forced Democratic mayors to admit, implicitly and explicitly, that migrants are a burden on public services and taxpayers.
It has stoked tensions between Democrats at the state and municipal levels on the one hand and the White House on the other over resources and border policy.
That’s not bad for the price of some bus tickets.
Outgoing Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot declared a state of emergency when the number of migrants arriving from Texas since August reached 8,000. Chicago is a city of 2.7 million. The influx represents about .29 percent of the population.
New York City mayor Eric Adams has said his city “is being destroyed by the migrant crisis.” Roughly 60,000 migrants have arrived since the spring of 2022 on buses from Texas and under their own power. New York is one of the greatest cities in the world, with a population of more than 8 million, and already has hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have entered the country illegally living in it.
The mayor of Washington, D.C., Muriel Bowser, called (unsuccessfully) on the Pentagon to help with handling newly arriving migrants last year.
All of these places are “sanctuary cities.” There’s NIMBYism, and then there’s self-righteously declaring that you want more of something and, when it shows up at your doorstep, crying foul.
