(Headline USA) A Chicago Democrat blasted his fellow city leaders this week after they passed Mayor Brandon Johnson’s request for an additional $70 million in funding for illegal immigrants.
The city’s budget committee voted 20-8 on Monday to advance the proposal to the full city council after a heated debate.
Chris Taliaferro, who represents the city’s 29th Ward, was one of several officials who spoke out against the package, arguing that the city should be investing those resources in its own residents.
“We are not taking care of our own,” he said, according to local outlet WTTW. “We have all but forgotten the residents on the West Side and South Side.”
Budget Director Annette Guzman defended the proposal during the meeting, arguing that “the unintended and indirect costs will soar” if Chicago does not do more to manage the migrant crisis.
But Taliaferro pointed out that Chicago had already allocated $150 million to help the growing migrant crisis.
He was not the only Democrat skeptical of Johnson’s request for even more funding.
“Here we are begging for more money when we don’t have money for the people here,” Anthony Beale, a Democrat who represents Chicago’s 9th Ward, said.
“We don’t have money for after school programs. We don’t have money to help our kids get off the street,” he continued. “Yet, we would just blow money left and right. That’s a fundamental problem.”
Others complained that the federal government hasn’t provided Chicago with more monetary aid.
“I am surprised by the wholly inadequate federal response,” Daniel La Spata, who represents the 1st Ward, said. “They have chosen to do nothing.”
La Spata, who is white, also blasted his colleagues for pitting “the needs of poor black people … against the needs of poor Latine people.”
He insinuated that outraged Chicago citizens were being used as pawns in a vast right-wing conspiracy to pry them away from their longtime Democrat benefactors.
“Really and truly, who’s telling you we need to choose between flooding relief for Black households or shelter for migrants?” he tweeted. “Ask yourself where that messaging really comes from and who benefits from that argument?”
Really and truly, who’s telling you we need to choose between flooding relief for Black households or shelter for migrants? Ask yourself where that messaging really comes from and who benefits from that argument?
— Daniel La Spata (@DanielLaSpata) April 15, 2024
