(WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- The administration of Mayor Brandon Johnson is trying to put the city’s response to the migrant crisis on a steadier path, but one alderman has a stark warning about the potential for the optics to worsen.
Cristina Pacione-Zayas, Johnson’s deputy chief of staff, this week updated the City Council’s Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights. She said the administration is working to place migrants in temporary housing and out of Chicago police stations where some of the asylum seekers have been housed.
Ald. Jeanette Taylor (20th), the panel’s vice chair, praised the mayor’s office for what it’s doing so far. She said the city needs more federal assistance as buses of migrants are sent here from the Southern Border by Republican governors.
President Biden, a Democrat, happened to be visiting Chicago Wednesday as the discussion was occurring.
The committee’s chairman, Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th), said the federal government is obligated morally and politically to help cities like Chicago. He looked ahead to the Democratic National Convention, which is expected to be held here next summer.
“We need more than speeches right now,” Vasquez said. “And with the DNC coming, if we don’t have that figured out, it’s not lost on me that you’re going to see Red States sending more and more people as you get closer to it.
“And if you don’t figure out how to address it, you’re going to see these folks on the street during the convention. And that’s not going to be a good look for the Democratic Party.”
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