Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Demands Biden ‘Step Up’ with ‘Federal Support’ for Bused Illegals

Mayor Lori Lightfoot at a City Council meeting on July 20, 2022. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chica
Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

On Thursday, Chicago’s Democrat Mayor, Lori Lightfoot, demanded that Joe Biden “step up” and provide federal funds to help her cope with the illegal aliens shipped to the Windy City by Republican governors.

Lightfoot told reporters at a presser on Thursday:

The federal government has to step up. I was in Washington, DC, last week talking with members of Customs and Border Patrol, National FEMA, ICE, and DHS. And we made it very clear — I made it very clear — that our expectations that they were going to have a plan that features communication and collaboration with interior cities. And they must do that, and they must do that soon.

Lightfoot also seemed to admit that the crisis on the border is nothing new.

“I know that they’re under enormous pressures, this is not a new challenge at the border, but this is a new challenge for us and we need federal support. Resources, communication, and collaboration, and that has to come in short order,” she told reporters.

A group of migrants board a CTA bus at Chicago's Union Station to be taken to a Salvation Army shelter after arriving from Texas on Aug. 31, 2022. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

A group of migrants board a CTA bus at Chicago’s Union Station to be taken to a Salvation Army shelter after arriving from Texas on Aug. 31, 2022. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

Lightfoot’s plea for more federal money to cope with the influx of illegals shipped via bus, mostly from Texas by governor Greg Abbott, came only days after House Democrats demanded an additional $50 million in federal funding to house and feed illegal aliens being shipped from border states to Democrat-run big cities in the north that have until now been blissfully free of the problems caused by the wave of illegals swamping the border states.

The House Democrats attempted to blame the issue on Republicans whom they called “xenophobes” for daring to share the burden of Biden’s constant waves of illegals with areas of the country that have never had to suffer the influx seen daily by border states.

Illinois Democrat Jesús García, for instance, blasted GOP governors for “playing politics” instead of dealing fairly with the issue, according to The Hill.

“Playing politics with the lives of these immigrants is dehumanizing and cruel, but not unexpected from the xenophobic, fear-mongering politics of Governor Abbot,” García said in the letter to the Homeland Security Appropriations subcommittee last Friday.

“In a cynical political stunt that has exploited both vulnerable migrants and D.C., the governors of Texas and Arizona have bused thousands of migrants to D.C., Chicago, and New York City in the last several months,” District of Columbia Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton added.

Forcing border states to suffer daily from the consequences of Biden’s border crisis is expected, but spreading the misery to Democrat-run cities is apparently a bridge too far for these Democrats. And neither Democrat explained how being a “sanctuary city” is welcoming, but having illegals actually arriving is “xenophobic.”

Garcia’s Chicago has labeled itself a “sanctuary city” for nearly a decade, already, but the congressman says that now that illegals are actually coming, the city needs more federal dollars to “ensure their food, shelter and other basic needs are covered.”

But as Lightfoot calls on the federal government to “communicate” and “collaborate” with city officials, she apparently does not see a need to do so with the mayors of the local communities to which she has shipped the illegals from Texas.

Last week, Burr Ridge Mayor Gary Grasso said that Chicago did not coordinate with his city before dropping off dozens of illegals at a Burr Ridge hotel, Breitbart News reported.

“I am concerned neither the village administrator nor I were told about this,” Grasso said. “We want to know: Why Burr Ridge?”

Grasso added that, while Cook County is a so-called sanctuary county, his town never took a stance by joining the sanctuary movement. Indeed, during his recent campaign for congress, Grasso ran on a platform of reducing illegal immigration and defunding sanctuary cities.

The Burr Ridge mayor also noted that the city government only became aware that Chicago had dumped illegals there when residents called city hall to complain.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston

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