Immigration

Chicago Mayor’s Office Says ‘Racism’ Is Behind Abbott’s Effort To Bus Illegal Migrants To The ‘Sanctuary City’

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UPDATE: This piece has been updated to include a comment from Abbott’s office.

Democrat Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office said that “racism” was behind Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s effort to bus illegal migrants to the sanctuary city.

“We know that racism, discrimination, and human cruelty have played a pivotal role in how immigrants are received within our borders, and we are still working to recover from the previous presidential administration, which encouraged this behavior,” Lightfoot’s Deputy Communications Director Ryan Johnson wrote on Twitter Wednesday.

We know that racism, discrimination, and human cruelty have played a pivotal role in how immigrants are received within our borders, and we are still working to recover from the previous presidential administration, which encouraged this behavior. https://t.co/jt2Nl1O31T

— Ryan Johnson (@Ryan_Johnson) September 1, 2022

Abbott announced Wednesday that he’d sent his first bus of illegal migrants to Chicago following his ongoing efforts to send similar buses to Washington, D.C. and New York City.

“Mayor Lightfoot loves to tout the responsibility of her city to welcome all regardless of legal status, and I look forward to seeing this responsibility in action as these migrants receive resources from a sanctuary city with the capacity to serve them,” Abbott said in a statement.

Abbott’s spokesperson Renae Eze later responded to the “racism” claims, telling the Daily Caller News Foundation Lightfoot should be more focused on getting President Joe Biden to address the border crisis.

“Instead of complaining, she should call on President Biden to take immediate action to secure the border—something the President continues failing to do,” Abbott spokesperson Renae Eze told the DCNF.

“Where was Mayor Lightfoot’s condemnation of President Biden as he flew planeloads of migrants across the country and dropped them in communities in the cover of night? Mayor Lightfoot is just another hypocritical Democrat mayor who touts having a sanctuary city, yet complains when we send a few dozen migrants into her city of over 2.5 million,” Eze said.

Lightfoot joins Democrat Mayors of New York City, Eric Adams, and Washington, D.C., Muriel Bowser in their critiques of Abbott’s busing efforts.

“This is horrific when you think about what the governor of Texas is doing,” Adams recently said. “After months of traveling across the border, place them on the bus with no direction to come here to New York. And New York is a city that has always represented the Democratic values, the values of our city, showing our compassion, that’s what we’re doing today.”

In July, Bowser claimed that the illegal migrants were “tricked” into getting on the buses. However, illegal migrants who took the buses from the Arizona border recently denied Bowser’s claim, in interviews with the DCNF.

The first effort began in April with buses going to the nation’s capital in response to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) decision to end Title 42, the public health order used to quickly expel illegal migrants. The order to end Title 42 has since been paused by a federal judge.

Lightfoot’s office didn’t respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.