Chicago City Wire

Chicago resident Jessica Jackson said the Chicago City Council is giving more resources to those illegally entering the country and settling in Chicago than legacy residents and taxpayers in need. Jackson spoke out on the issue at a recent Chicago City Council meeting.

"In the words of Malcolm X, we have been hoodwinked, run amuck, bamboozled, by sitting here thinking that these Black politicians are helping us," Jackson said.

Malcolm X had given a speech about how Democratic Party leaders didn't expel "Dixiecrats" from the party. 

“They have got a con game going on, a political con game, and you and I are in the middle,” he said in an April 3, 1964 speech in Cleveland, Ohio. “It's time for you and me to wake up and start looking at it like it is, and trying to understand it like it is; and then we can deal with it like it is.”

According to a previous Chicago City Wire report, State Rep. La Shawn Ford (D-Chicago) told The Center Square that Black residents are being overlooked in the city in favor of the undocumented.

"What people are feeling is that the people who have been in these neighborhoods for generations, they have been treated inhumanely by the same government that is making efforts to provide good care to the asylum seekers,” Ford said.

Residents of Chicago expressed their dissatisfaction with the allocation of resources to assist migrants during the June 21 meeting of Chicago City Council and Mayor Brandon Johnson. Concerns were raised about the influx of migrants in their communities and the perceived neglect of long-term residents. The city had recently relocated some foreign nationals from the southern border to various neighborhoods within Chicago, but critics argued that more should be done to support the local residents who have been living in these areas for generations. 

Last month, the city council approved $51 million from opioid and vaping settlement funds for migrant services, but it is expected to cover only a few months' worth of assistance. 

Approximately 10,000 migrants have arrived in Chicago from the southern border over the past nine months. Gov. J.B. Pritzker has called on the federal government to provide additional resources, including jobs, for both Chicago and the migrants. As part of the state's fiscal 2024 budget, an additional $43 million in taxpayer funding will be allocated to care for migrants.

Chicago Republican Party Chairman Steve Boulton has demanded a congressional hearing to investigate the city's spending on converting a school building into a housing complex for immigrants, questioning the use of funds that he said could be allocated for economic development. Predominantly Black Woodlawn residents protested the resettlement efforts and expressed disappointment with the decision, claiming unequal treatment compared to other neighborhoods, South Cook News reported.