‘We Are Completely Tapped Out’: Lori Lightfoot Implores Greg Abbott to Stop Sending Migrants to Chicago
Outgoing Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot took to CNN in order to once again request that Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) stop sending immigrants to the Windy City.
Lightfoot sent Abbott a letter over the weekend to condemn his policy of relocating migrants to so-called sanctuary cities, which she called a “dangerous and inhumane action.”
Read a portion of the letter here:
Chicago is a Welcoming City and we collaborate with County, State, and community partners to rise to this challenge, but your lack of consideration or coordination in an attempt to cause chaos and score political points has resulted in a critical tipping point in our ability to receive individuals and families in a safe, orderly, and dignified way. We simply have no more shelters, spaces, or resources to accommodate an increase of individuals at this level, with little coordination or care, that does not pose a risk to them or others.
I know by your actions that you either do not see or do not care about the trauma these migrants have already faced and continue to suffer under the humanitarian crisis you have created. But I beseech you anyway: treat these individuals with the respect and dignity that they deserve. To tell them to go to Chicago or to inhumanely bus them here is an inviable and misleading choice.
While critics have spoken out against Abbott’s “stunt” of bussing immigrants to Democrat-run cities, his administration has defended its actions as a means of generating political pressure for more action on border security. When Lightfoot discussed this on CNN This Morning, she said she hadn’t heard back from Abbott’s administration, “and frankly, I didn’t expect to hear anything back.”
“I felt like it was important to once again try to engage the governor, but also let him know what his policies and practices are doing in cities like Chicago,” Lightfoot said. “We are completely tapped out. We have no more space. No more resources. And frankly, we’re already in a surge.”
When Kaitlan Collins pressed Lightfoot on Abbott’s reasoning, the mayor stood by her point that the governor refuses to engage with her while sending migrants with “serious medical conditions” into her city.
“So if we don’t put the humanity of these migrants front and center — I understand, and I’m solely compassionate to the fact that the borders are themselves really overrun, but you don’t solve that problem by simply sticking people on buses to a city that they didn’t ask to, for an uncertain future, and now we are literally full.”
Watch above via CNN.
