Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski is criticizing the allocation of taxpayer funds for migrants, describing it as a "slap in the face" for many struggling residents in Illinois.
Dabrowski expressed concerns over the escalating costs associated with accommodating migrants, calling the situation a "big tease" that encourages more individuals to come to the city, placing a burden on local resources.
“I call it the big tease, right? Let's see how many people we can tease to come over the border and then leave them in limbo like we're doing now,” Dabrowski said on Chicago’s Morning Answer.
“I love this whole thing where – I think I mentioned the other day, I went back to the police station in the Larrabee division. It's being cleared out now, it was absolute chaos a week and a half to go. And what I love, this Venezuelan guy said, 'look, if you don't want us to come, close the border.' But he said, 'But if it's open and you're handing out stuff, we're coming.' That's what he told me and that's precisely what's happening.”
“I think now when you start digging into the numbers, as he just did, and I'm glad you mentioned it, the numbers are going to pop into the billions. And here we are struggling for a lot of things for a lot of people. But you mentioned the $700 million, which I haven't reviewed that number, but when you start getting into the Medicaid alone, we're already close to $800 million on that. You've got the money Chicago has already spent, $40 million a month. Now they've allocated $150 million more for next year's budget from Chicago and that's nothing. They'll need much more than that. Now, you've got Cook County adding close to $100 million. Now you've got the new $160 million from Pritzker and then God knows what else that can be reallocated because I don't think we have any idea what the true costs are and they're sure as hell not going to tell us because it's pretty embarrassing how much it must cost to run the shelters.”
“It's a phenomenal amount of money and it's a slap in the face of taxpayers and it certainly is a slap in the face of a lot of people in Illinois who struggle. And I'm not saying that we should be handing out something, but it's one thing to say we've got to balance our budget. Then the next time around you're spending billions on migrants who are not even from here.”
Invoices obtained by NBC 5 Investigates reveal that the city of Chicago was charged over $7.2 million by Favorite Healthcare Staffing to staff migrant shelters over a four-week period this spring.
The total spending on shelter staffing has reached nearly $60 million, prompting city leaders to express concerns about escalating costs and call for additional funding from state and federal governments.
The analysis of invoices covering parts of April and May shows hourly rates, despite being reduced, still resulted in charges such as over $64,000 for the services of one nurse in a four-week period.
The mayor's administration claims to have renegotiated the contract to address inflated rates and administrative costs.
“For me, if you are going to spend that much tax dollars on Chicagoans, it should go to Chicagoans. To get to the point that it becomes a point of recycling those funds in our economy, is where we want to be,” 40th Ward Ald. Andre Vasquez, who chairs the Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said, according to NBC 5 Chicago.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson's allocation of $150 million in the 2024 budget to care for migrants is receiving criticism, as it is less than half of the projected $361 million the city is expected to spend on the crisis between January and December 2023.
With over 18,000 migrants arriving in the past 14 months, nearly 11,000 are currently under the city's care, leading to a significant strain on resources and infrastructure.
The financial burden is further compounded as Chicago spends approximately $5 million per week on addressing the migrant influx, contributing to a projected budget deficit of $538 million for 2024.
With more than 10,000 migrants residing in temporary shelters and nearly 1,500 housed in police stations, the strain on city departments, including the police, is becoming increasingly challenging.
The plan to move migrants out of police stations and into prefabricated shelters is underway, but concerns persist, with $83 million in Chicago taxpayer dollars already spent on the crisis through mid-August.
Alerts Sign-up