HOW IT STARTED: Mayor Rahm Emanuel: ‘Chicago Always Will Be A Sanctuary City.’
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel added his voice to the chorus of big-city mayors who say theirs will remain “sanctuary cities” in response to President-elect Donald Trump’s hard-line positions on illegal immigration.
Surrounded by immigration activists, business leaders and state and federal lawmakers, Emanuel sought to reduce the fear of immigrants living in this country without authorization.
“To all those who are, after Tuesday’s election, very nervous and filled with anxiety … you are safe in Chicago, you are secure in Chicago and you are supported in Chicago,” said Emanuel at a news conference called to publicize the expansion of mental health services for people anxious over the election results.
“Chicago has in the past been a sanctuary city. … It always will be a sanctuary city,” the mayor said.
—NPR, November 14th, 2016.
How it’s going: HA! Brandon Johnson MELTS TF DOWN Because TX Keeps Sending Illegal Immigrants to Sanctuary Cities (Watch).
Awwww, would you look at that? Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is upset with Texas for sending illegal immigrants to Sanctuary Cities across the country. Does he not realize that’s what Sanctuary Cities are for?
Like so many Democrat mayors who were more than happy to accuse Abbott and DeSantis of being RACISTS for opposing Joe Biden’s open border, they sure seem to change their tunes quickly when they get to deal with a small, minuscule even amount of what our southern states deal with every day.
Watch this:
Mayor Brandon Johnson melts down over Texas sending illegals to sanctuary cities:
"IT IS NOT JUST A CHICAGO DYNAMIC!
HE IS ATTACKING OUR COUNTRY!" pic.twitter.com/n0yND8Mv5Q— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) December 19, 2023
Earlier: Sanctuary Cities Seethe as Illegal Immigrants Actually Arrive.
The surest sign that public policies are simply virtue signals is when the messages don’t cost anything. The easiest way to tell when that signal starts to fail is to watch politicians flounder as the costs start to rise and voters demand relief.
It was free—and meaningless—for progressive churches to post banners calling themselves “nuclear free zones” during the Reagan era. Their dwindling congregations loved it. It was free, after George Floyd‘s murder, to post woke catechism signs on your front lawn, proclaiming “In this house, we believe: Black Lives Matter, women’s rights are human rights, no human is illegal” and so on. Maybe the neighbors gave you high-fives. And for years it has been free for deep-blue cities to proclaim themselves “sanctuaries” for illegal immigrants. That’s changing now that voters want some sanctuary for themselves.
Changes like this happen when voters realize the old virtue signals actually entail serious costs—and that they will have to pay them. That is exactly what’s happening in New York City and Washington D.C. now that Texas governor Greg Abbott is sending those cities a few busloads of illegal immigrants from his state.
These progressive bastions were silent when the Biden administration flew planeloads of illegal immigrants to suburban airports in the middle of the night. TV coverage was prohibited, and the arrivals were secretly dispersed. Abbott’s buses, by contrast, arrive downtown greeted by local TV crews. Now you can hear the politicians screech.
The ghost of Saul Alinsky smiles: “Make opponents live up to their own book of rules. ‘You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.’”
Incidentally, “dynamic” seems to be an all-purpose buzzword the mayor has adopted: Editorial: Mayor Johnson, crime in Chicago is not a ‘dynamic.’ It’s a full-blown crisis.
Asked about it, Johnson told Block Club that “There’s work to be done.” He went on, then, to say, “We’re going to continue to work with the Police Department and the full force of government to address this dynamic, just like we’re addressing every single other dynamic in the city of Chicago.”
And therein lies a key part of the problem. Mr. Mayor, this isn’t a “dynamic” akin to “every single other dynamic.” It’s not a second-tier issue.
Johnson’s budget adds modestly to investment in more cops, and he’s called consistently for more detectives to try to improve Chicago’s woeful clearance rate on the most serious crimes. Homicides are down year-over-year, which is modestly good news. They remain way too high.
But what’s afflicting the public now is rampant armed theft, making it increasingly unsafe to walk neighborhood streets. Robberies are up a mind-boggling 57% so far this year. Many of those are armed robberies.
No, Mr. Mayor, this isn’t just another headache you must cope with while zealously pursuing your agenda of hiking taxes to fund more social programs. This is the job. It may not be the job you would prefer to do, but there isn’t anything more important on your plate.
In August, there was another D-word moment from Johnson:
Johnson touted among his successes movement on his Bring Chicago Home initiative to help the homeless, and his efforts to revamp the approach to policing so it incorporates his campaign promise of utilizing mental health experts for some 911 calls.
“We’re moving toward actually passing that, we’ve actually shifted the dynamic in the city of Chicago as we prepare to confirm our next police superintendent,” Johnson said. “I don’t know we’ve ever had a police superintendent talk about treatment not trauma. I mean, that’s what I ran on.”
Gooder and harder, Second City.