Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker declared a state of emergency Wednesday as migrants are being dropped off in Chicago from Texas.
The declaration will allow state and local agencies to provide humanitarian assistance and resources including emergency shelter, housing, food, transportation and medical assessments, he announced. He also announced the deployment of 75 members of the National Guard manage the migrant influx.
“While other states may be treating people as pawns, here in Illinois, we are treating people as people. When someone comes running and seeking help, we will do the right thing and offer a hand,” the governor said. “That’s why today I’m signing a disaster proclamation to unlock immediate resources to help Chicago, Cook County, and other jurisdictions handle the asylum seekers being sent without notice.”
The governor then condemned Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for sending the migrants to Chicago and other cities around the country. Some migrants have voluntarily boarded the buses and there is no indication they have been forced to travel to other locations.
“Here in Illinois, we refuse to stoop to that man’s level. We will provide food, shelter, and healthcare for the children, women, and men that need it,” he said.
About 500 migrants have been bussed from Central and South America to Chicago’s Union Station since the end of August, officials said at the Wednesday press conference. The most recent bus arrived Tuesday evening.
The governor said Abbott’s office is unresponsive to the city and has put “politics over people.”
“The governor of Texas is forcing on New York and D.C. and Chicago and potentially other places a needlessly last-minute and complex process,” Pritzker said. “It is a heartless display of politics over people. … This is about politics for him without regard to the fear and anguish, and the challenges that it poses for these refugees.”
Abbott’s spokesperson, Renae Eze, told the Daily Caller that the Democratic governors are “hypocrites” for taking these actions on migrants arriving to their cities.
“So much for Chicago’s ‘Welcoming City Ordinance.’ These Democrat elites are absolute hypocrites, and now their hypocrisy is on full display for the entire nation. Governor Pritzker and Mayor Lightfoot have been complaining about a few hundred migrants being bused into self-declared sanctuary city Chicago, then turn around and dump them in the suburbs for Republican mayors to deal with,” she told the Daily Caller.
“Governor Pritzker and his staff have also at no point made any effort to reach out to Governor Abbott or his office. Instead of complaining about fulfilling their ‘welcoming city’ promises and spreading false claims of contacting our office, these Democrat hypocrites should call on President Biden to do his job and secure the border—something the President continues failing to do,” she continued.
Migrants have been bussed from Texas and Arizona to Washington D.C. and New York City in the past several months. Abbott bussed the first bus of migrants to D.C. in April in retaliation to the administration’s planned end to Title 42, a Trump-era COVID protocol allowing for the expulsion of migrants to protect against the virus.
Democratic Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot also criticized the governor for the arrival of migrants in the city.
“He professes to be a Christian,” Lightfoot said, according to Fox News. “This is not the Christianity and the teachings of the Bible that I know. And I think religious leaders all across the country are standing up and denouncing exactly this.”
