Sometimes, I almost feel sorry for the mayors of large northern cities who made it a point to brag about their "welcoming" communities while small towns in Texas and Arizona were being swamped with illegal aliens.
Now that the shoe is on their foot, we don't hear much about their moral superiority. So, despite the terrible situation in which they find themselves, I can't summon much sympathy.
"My Give a Damn's Busted," sang Jo Dee Messina. That's just about how I feel.
So when three big-city mayors come together in a virtual press conference literally begging Joe Biden to do something about the overwhelming surge of migrants streaming into their cities, you know the situation is at a crisis point and something needs to be done. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston held a virtual press conference calling for more action from the federal government.
"Our cities have reached a point where we are either close to capacity or nearly out of room without significant intervention from the federal government," Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said. "This mission will not be sustained."
"We're looking at about $160 million of potential costs going into next year's budget. That's almost 10% of our entire city budget. That's a massive impact for us," Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said.
Part of the effort is to try and stop buses from the southern border from dropping off passengers in their cities. But the bus operators avoid the usual drop-off points and end up disgorging their passengers in the suburbs of the big cities. As you can imagine, suburban politicians are no happier than big-city politicians.
ABC7:
Grundy County has joined other Chicago suburbs in an effort to deter buses from dropping off migrants from Texas outside of the city.
As the rhetoric surrounding this issue grows more heated, a growing number of suburbs are convening emergency meetings and taking action to keep those migrant buses away.
Buses have been dropping off asylum seekers unannounced in towns like University Park, Aurora and more.
Two more buses are expected Thursday near Des Plaines and Polk streets in Chicago, and more migrants were dropped off there Wednesday night, huddling in the cold.
The mayors have begun to crack down on the bus drivers, who are almost always just doing the jobs they were paid to do. The boss says to drop them at the terminal, but if the city doesn't let them, they'll just drop them off further down the road.
And the mayors are going to lock them up for that?
The White House is saying this is all just a big misunderstanding. The cities are getting plenty of money, you can be sure of that.
The administration has pointed to actions it has taken to help communities, including more than $1 billion in grant funding, as well as additional efforts to give migrants work permits and speed up asylum requests.
"This year, the Biden-Harris Administration, in collaboration with the states and cities across the country, launched a one-stop-shop work authorization and Temporary Protected Status clinics to help eligible non-citizens get work permits and decompress the respective shelter systems. To date, these clinics have served approximately 10,000 individuals and thanks to USCIS’ efforts, the median processing time for work permit applications is 30 days," a White House spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Thursday.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams has slashed his city's budget by 11%, cutting everything from police and fire departments to library services. Naturally, the left is screaming bloody murder. But you can't have it both ways. You can't be a "welcoming" sanctuary city and not suffer the consequences when the bill comes due.
