By Kimberly James; WBAP and KLIF News, Dallas, Texas.
CHICAGO – (WBAP/KLIF) – Another Lone Star State delivery of migrants to a northern big city, with 120 flown from Texas to Chicago Wednesday, as Texas Governor Greg Abbott chooses a flight, rather than continuing to bus them.
Chicago officials were left scrambling to pick up and find temporary housing on demand for the migrants, who were not dropped off at migrant centers, but at irregular points in the city. Chicago’s City Council responded by voting to fine bus operators who dropped off migrants at locations other than migrant centers, and began towing and impounding the vehicles. Abbott began flying them instead – this time to Chicago, as of Wednesday night, with 120 arriving in chilling temperatures. Some were reported barefooted and without adequate clothing for the climate. The bus drivers are reported to have begun dropping off migrants in Chicago’s neighboring cities instead.
Chicago, and the Chicago area, has received some 23,000 migrants since busing began in April of 2022. 80 thousand of those migrants were sent from Texas. Immigrant advocates call this political theatre, and remind politicians while the stories grab headlines, the actions do nothing to slow the rate of the incoming.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has been sending the migrants to “sanctuary cities”, in which police will not arrest those believed or known to have entered the country illegally. Meanwhile, the Lone Star State has passed, and Governor signed, Senate bills 3 and 4. SB 4 was signed into law this week, and faced a legal challenge within 24 hours, with more joining in the suit. SB 4 would allow any Texas police officer to arrest anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. Immigration and civil rights groups say the law makes legal racial discrimination. Abbott says it will give police officers who see related crimes the power to make an arrest of the lawbreaker.
The American Civil Liberties challenges the law in the suit on the grounds immigration is under the sole jurisdiction of the federal government. El Paso County Commissioners Court Monday voted unanimously to fight implementation of SB 4; same day Abbott signed it into law. SB 4’s measures would go into effect March 5, 2024, unless it is stopped by the courts. El Paso County has joined the ACLU lawsuit.
“El Paso has long been at the forefront of fighting against terrible immigration policy and I’m glad to see that we’re continuing to do so,” Commissioner David Stout said at the meeting. “Not only is this gonna have serious social implications, we’re probably gonna see increases in racial profiling and other terrible violations of people’s rights and violations of the Constitution.” Elpasomatters.org reports Commissioner David Stout as stating “El Paso has long been at the forefront of fighting against terrible immigration policy and I’m glad to see that we’re continuing to do so. Not only is this gonna have serious social implications, we’re probably gonna see increases in racial profiling and other terrible violations of people’s rights and violations of the Constitution.”
Other immigration advocates call the Abbott immigrant policies “political theatre” and remind the Governor grabbing headlines does nothing to slow the rate of the incoming. Immigration concerns include overworked and insufficient numbers of U.S. Border Patrol agents, increasingly taxed with processing them, rather than seeking those that do enter the country illegally. Immigration numbers this week are ramping up to as many as 10 and in excess of 10 thousand per day at the southern border with Mexico.
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