Chicago City Council Meeting on 'Sanctuary City' Status Shows Citizens That Elections Have Consequences

It's all liberal fun and games until you have to actually be what you say you are, and then the fact that elections do indeed have consequences comes to smack you upside the head. That is now the reality that residents in Chicago, many of them black and Hispanic, are finding out when they attend Chicago City Council meetings to protest the Windy City's sanctuary city status for illegal immigrants.

The mayor they voted for doesn't really appear to care what they think. For Mayor Brandon Johnson, it is seemingly all about upholding leftist ideology, his citizens be damned.

Frustrated Chicagoans Shut Down Chicago City Council Meeting Over Sanctuary City Issue

Open borders hurt the Black Community the most, Chicago just figured it out.
— TheTexasOne (@TexasRepublic71) November 10, 2023

Tuesday night's City Council meeting became a raucous affair, as protesters ultimately shut down the meeting, but not before Chicagoans began shouting and booing aldermen during a heated discussion over whether to retain the city's sanctuary status for illegals coming into the country. Residents are at odds with city leaders over the fact that as a harsh Chicago winter is right around the corner, Johnson is proposing tent cities around Chicago, however, many of these proposed camps are projected to be in poor, predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

Residents also have a problem with how much illegal immigrants are costing the city, money that could be well spent on those poor neighborhoods. Roughly 20,000 illegals have been bussed to Chicago, and 9th Ward Alderman Anthony Beale commented on the price tag for those immigrants saying, "We're spending a lot of money every single day. I think up to $40 million a month, ladies and gentlemen."

Places like New York City are finding out just what it means to be a sanctuary city to thousands of people who land on their doorstep with little to no resources of their own. During a September interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Brandon Johnson insisted that Chicago would not be "overwhelmed" by the immigrant dilemma like NYC. But he is faced with the dilemma of how to get immigrants -- currently camped out on the floors of police precincts and O'Hare Airport -- out of there..

Tuesday night's meeting saw Johnson and his supporters try to push through a weak version of a non-binding referendum, but residents shouted down the attempt, ultimately resulting in the meeting being cleared for around 10 minutes as tempers flared from those on both sides of the issue. One man called out those being asked to leave the meeting saying, "These are the people who are against us!" But one woman shouted a pointed question at aldermen, "Do you want a race war?"

Why Chicago Black folks crying so hard about illegals now?

Y’all said you was a sanctuary city.

Y’all said ILLEGALS WELCOME.

Y’all said NOTHING when biden opened the border and said “come and get it.”

And y’all won’t stop voting Democrat.

So now y’all getting what you voted…
— Lavern Spicer 🇺🇸 (@lavern_spicer) October 19, 2023

Why not let the people of Chicago decide if they want to remain a sanctuary city? Alderman Beale has tried to do that very thing by trying to get an advisory referendum on the March 2024 ballot. But what may just be another day in Chicago politics, the prevention of that happening resulted in the resignation of mayoral floor leader and Zoning Committee Chairman Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa amid bullying allegations. Tuesday's Rules Committee meeting was originally called to come up with a more watered-down version of Beale's sanctuary ballot question.

Alderman Raymond Lopez pointed out that referendums do not solve the problem and raised valid questions, saying,

Should we limit what we spend? ... What happens when you reach the limit? What are you going to do when you say, ‘We’ve spent all the money we’re willing to spend’ and you still have buses arriving here? This question does not answer the issue as to why people continue to be shipped to the city of Chicago...

While Aldermen Beale and Lopez would push for a ballot referendum on Chicago's sanctuary status and let the people decide, Johnson and his supporters would like to avoid that if possible, most likely because of fear they would lose. Instead, Johnson seems like he would just throw more federal money at the problem, proving once again that progressive Democrats are so wedded to their leftist ideology and winning the virtue signaling contest by being to slap on the moniker of "sanctuary city," that they really have no interest in solving the illegal immigration problem -- even at the expense of their constituents.

After the melee, the Rules Committee recessed until November 16, the day after the City Council will take a final vote on Johnson's $16.6 billion budget. Johnson has estimated that Chicago will spend around $223 million in 2023 on illegal immigration. Note to the people of Chicago: this is what you voted for.