A Tale of Two Mayors
New York and Chicago are both reeling from the effects of mass illegal migration.
New York City and Chicago are a lot alike. Both are major population centers (first and third in the U.S., respectively), both are governed by black Democrat men, and both are sanctuary cities that, predictably, have become plagued with large populations of illegal aliens. That last point, however, is also where the cities diverge.
“Cancel me,” asserted NYC Mayor Eric Adams, but he plans to work with Donald Trump’s incoming border czar Tom Homan to deport illegals living in his city. “I’m going to protect the people of this city,” Adams declared. “Those who are here committing crimes, robberies, shooting at police officers, [and] raping innocent people have been a harm to our country. I want to sit down and hear the plan on how we’re going to address them. … I would love to sit down with the border czar and hear his thoughts on how we’re going to address those who are harming our citizens.”
He also had a message for today’s Democrats who caterwaul about the supposed inhumanity of deporting illegals. “Google Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama,” he challenged. “Google what they said about those who commit crimes. … They said those who commit crimes need to get out right away.”
I’ll save you the search because we did the research three years ago: He’s right.
JUST IN: New York City Mayor Eric Adams says he “would love” to sit down with Border Czar Tom Homan, says he doesn’t care if the left cancels him.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) December 3, 2024
“Cancel me because I’m going to protect the people of this city.”
“Those who are here committing crimes, robberies, sh**ting at… pic.twitter.com/nJ5eGCJsze
New York City is currently "home” to more than 750,000 illegal aliens, 200,000 of whom are asylum seekers awaiting adjudication. More than 50,000 aliens are in the city’s (read: taxpayers’) care. Nearly 60,000 of the aliens in the Big Apple have either been convicted of crimes or face criminal charges, and at least 1,100 of them are known gang members.
That’s a major problem, even in a city of eight million people. By the way, 38 states have populations under eight million.
New York Republican Representative Nicole Malliotakis agrees with Adams that something must be done. “In many cases,” she said, the city has “provided them with housing, food, and healthcare. They need to stop using New Yorkers’ hard-earned tax dollars to shield criminals wreaking havoc on our streets and instead cooperate with ICE to have them deported.”
So does City Councilman Robert Holden, a Queens Democrat, who said, “These numbers make it clear what everyone but our elected officials already know: sanctuary city laws are endangering New Yorkers by shielding criminals instead of protecting law-abiding citizens.”
Now, it’s certainly true that Adams has some personal and political calculations here. In September, the Justice Department charged him with bribery and campaign finance offenses — arguably because of his tough talk on immigration and harsh criticism of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s open border. He wouldn’t shun one of those handy presidential pardons after Trump takes office. There’s a superb irony in a mayor under indictment focusing on cleaning up the illegal alien crime in his city by working with an administration of the opposite party to do it. What a time to be alive.
Meanwhile, in Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson is taking a very different approach.
Through its New Arrivals Mission, launched in August 2022, the city has spent more than half a billion tax dollars just sheltering illegals. Johnson wants a $60 million property tax hike to help cover the city’s $1 billion budget shortfall. Read that again — an American city faces a budget shortfall of $1 billion.
Chicago residents let Johnson have it — to his face — at a city council meeting on Monday. One woman called him the “worst mayor in America” and slammed him for the migrant crisis. “These people came with a wide door open, and they feel entitled to many things that nobody has. There are U.S. citizens suffering from poverty,” she said. “There are U.S. citizens on public aid, and these people are here just enjoying the benefits, becoming delinquents, and they have no consequences.”
Another woman quoted federal immigration law and warned Johnson, “You’re not going to exist for the next election because there’s a 10-year prison sentence” for what he’s done. A male resident likewise warned Johnson, “You got Kash Patel and Pam Bondi that you’re gonna have to deal with, sooner or later.” He even pulled out an orange prison jumpsuit to illustrate his point.
NEW: Chicago resident tells Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson to his face that Kash Patel and Pam Bondi are going to investigate, indict and convict him for harboring illegal aliens.
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) December 3, 2024
“It’s gonna be an audit. Then, it’s gonna be an investigation. Then, it’s gonna be an… pic.twitter.com/VumTDyJf1A
Like New York, albeit with a total population of only 2.6 million, Chicago is trying to deal with several hundred thousand illegals. Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott has bussed tens of thousands of them to the city. That bussing, also conducted by Florida’s Ron DeSantis, is a brilliant method for bringing the consequences of Democrats’ favored policies to their own doorstep.
It’s no surprise that people don’t like those awful consequences. No city, state, or nation can withstand the intentional invasion brought about by an open border and well over 10 million migrants, many of them criminals, fundamentally changing things. That has nothing to do with race and everything to do with the Rule of Law.
