A nearly year-long U.S. Senate GOP investigation into Chicago's migrant housing at O'Hare and Midway airports could become more than just a political irritant for Mayor Brandon Johnson next year as Republicans take control of the federal government and look to tighten rules on public accommodations. Spending by non-citizens.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, the ranking Republican on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, has for months escalated an investigation opened by committee Republicans into Chicago's policy of making migrants sleep in airports while they wait for shelter beds.
In a letter to the mayor in August, obtained by the Tribune via a public records request, the senator said Johnson's staff had not responded to questions he sent in January about the practice, and raised the possibility that continued noncompliance could jeopardize the federal airport grants Chicago receives. Projects at O'Hare International and Midway Airports. Cruz also suggested that Congress may force Chicago officials to respond if the Johnson administration does not provide answers.
At the time, the letter received no notice and Cruz's demands were little more than scare tactics in Washington, where Democrats controlled the Senate and national Republicans were using the immigration issue to rile up major cities across the country, where Chicago had always been the main one. . goal.
But with the GOP's growing anti-immigration fervor that helped return Donald Trump to the White House, and Republicans taking control of the US House and Senate, Cruz is set to chair the powerful committee starting in January. While it remains to be seen how real Cruz's threats are, one option for the committee is to move to withhold federal infrastructure funds from cities that continue to house migrants at airports.
Although the arrival of migrants to Chicago from the southern border — who are often bused here by order of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas — has declined significantly this year, the committee's move will be part of what is expected to be a multi-pronged approach by Republicans should take their immigration efforts directly to “sanctuary cities” like Chicago that have policies in place to protect immigrants’ rights.
Tom Homan — Trump's new border official, who campaigned on a recurring promise to “mass deport” immigrants — recently said on Fox News that he would use a “very, very powerful weapon” in potentially withholding federal funding from states and cities run by Democratic governors and mayors who are fighting… Relocation efforts. He also said he would jail the mayor of Denver, another sanctuary city, if the mayor blocked deportations of immigrants.
Johnson's press office did not respond to multiple inquiries about Cruz's letter and the Senate committee's investigation, which a committee spokesman said remains open. Among other Republicans on the committee who co-signed a letter supporting the investigation was Vice President-elect J.D. Vance of Ohio.
“Over the past several months, committee staff has reached out to your staff on 4 separate occasions seeking a response. Unfortunately, your staff has refused to provide an objective response,” Cruz wrote in the August letter. “Such a lack of transparency with Congress and the public The American is unacceptable. Your answer will help determine whether legislative changes to Airport Improvement Program grants are necessary.
The grants in question are federal funds that largely go toward airport construction projects. In 2024, O'Hare and Midway received about $112 million in Airport Improvement Program dollars.
In a statement to the Tribune, a representative of Republican members of the Senate committee said: “Incoming Commerce Committee Chairman Cruz is continuing his investigation into Mayor Johnson’s decision to fund Chicago’s airports and its impact on taxpayers.”
“With a Republican-led Congress, blue state mayors who violate federal law or misuse taxpayer dollars to prioritize illegal aliens over Americans will be held accountable,” the statement said.
A source at the Commerce Committee said that Johnson's office had begun answering the committee's questions, including the cost and impact on airport capacity. Republican members are considering banning cities from housing immigrants without legal permission to live in the United States at airports as a condition of accepting federal infrastructure money, the source said.
While Chicago's migrant crisis has abated, about a dozen migrants have remained so far this month at O'Hare waiting to be placed in a shelter, according to city Census figures, though it was unclear how long they would stay.
Cruz and the GOP Commerce Committee members hope to knock Johnson down by proving that housing migrants at airports in the past misused federal resources.
“Repurposing airport facilities and infrastructure to house illegal aliens not only degrades taxpayer investment in the national airport system, it violates the requirement that these federally funded facilities” be available for public use as an airport, Cruz wrote in the initial January letter. To Johnson. “No reasonable person would define the airport as a facility housing illegal aliens.”
The committee is asking the city to know the total number of immigrants who lived at O'Hare and Midway, where they were housed, costs and capacity reductions at the airport, whether the city consulted the FAA or TSA and any incidents that prompted a law enforcement response.
Cruz also questioned whether federal “passenger facility fee” funds were used at O'Hare's Terminal 1 or the airport's bus and coach center, all of which were used to house migrants. Facility fees are the revenue airports receive from fees charged on most airline tickets.
Cruz was also keen to bring up the $8.5 billion O'Hare renovation project, for which Johnson brokered a deal with major airlines in the spring.
“Your decision to house illegal aliens at O’Hare is even more curious given that Chicago has been in a contentious, months-long dispute with tenants United Airlines and American Airlines regarding the future of the new terminal,” Cruz wrote in January.
Chicago's migrant crisis began in August 2022 when Abbott sent busloads of asylum seekers to the city and other northern municipalities. The Republican governor said the southern border states are overwhelmed by a wave of migration stemming mostly from Venezuela, and he said so-called sanctuary cities like Chicago must walk the walk when it comes to welcoming migrants. Abbott's move was denounced as a cruel political ploy by Illinois leaders who accused him of sowing chaos and using poor asylum seekers as political pawns.
While Chicago's leadership has been clear in protecting its sanctuary city status, this law simply prohibits local law enforcement from assisting federal immigration authorities in carrying out deportations. It does not guarantee resources such as shelter and food.
The situation worsened after Johnson took office in May 2023, when Texas officials escalated the pace of migrants from Texas to Chicago. Meanwhile, the federal government has not come to Chicago's rescue with adequate aid or border policy reforms as increasing numbers of families camp out at police stations.
Although the scenes of makeshift tent cities on the sidewalks and lobbies of Chicago police departments captured national attention, hundreds of migrants were also being housed in Terminal 1, where asylum seekers who had arrived in Chicago by plane waited for a coveted bed in the crowded terminal. In the city. Shelters. At the peak in October 2023, about 850 migrants were sleeping at O'Hare, according to the city's daily count. Midway also housed immigrants temporarily, although this was much smaller as the immigrant population was only 30 years old.
The crisis diminished earlier this spring after President Joe Biden issued an executive order cracking down on border crossings.
Johnson responded to Trump's victory in November by pledging to Chicago's immigrant communities that the city would protect immigrants from deportation, saying Chicago's sanctuary city status would remain intact.
The confrontation between Cruz and Johnson is not the first time the Chicago mayor has confronted Republicans in Washington over Chicago's sanctuary status. Then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel sued Trump's Justice Department in 2017 after it withheld federal grants to Chicago over the policy.
Emanuel prevailed, although that legal battle was largely symbolic because the amount of money at stake represented a small portion of the city's police budget. It was $1.5 million that he wanted to use for ShotSpotter.
Originally published: December 1, 2024 at 5:00 AM CST
