Chicago’s new plan to allocate $70 million of taxpayer money to support illegal immigrants has been met with uproar from citizens.
Several community members spoke on the proposal at the Chicago City Council meeting on Wednesday.
One speaker, who introduced herself as “P-Rae” Easley, spoke strongly against the city’s plan.
“I’m asking y’all to use our tax money for our people. We need it,” Easley, who wore a red MAGA hat, said.
Easley told Fox News that the mayor’s diverting of funds to immigrants is “the most disrespectful thing we’ve ever encountered in our lives.”
“We’ve been paying property taxes in the city for generations, and to see them so openly give our money to people who don’t deserve it is very insulting,” she said.
“They’ve been telling us my entire life that they don’t have money for this, they don’t have money for that. We have to compromise. We must go without,” Easley said. ” But now we’re seeing that they are able to print money out of the clear blue sky, and we want to know why wasn’t our tax money given to us?”
The city council was expected to make a final vote on the funding proposal Friday.
The $70 million is in addition to the $150 million Chicago set aside in its 2024 budget for illegal immigrants.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson acknowledged that the staggering amount would only be enough to cover expenses through the first quarter.
Now, the city is going into the pockets of taxpayers for help.
Chicago Budget Director Annette Guzman told the Sun-Times that the $70 million will be drawn from the city’s assigned fund balance from 2022 “which was set aside in the event that additional resources were needed to support the new arrivals mission.”
The request comes as Chicago is in the midst of a serious financial struggle. The Washington Examiner reported that the city is expected to run a deficit of $1.5 billion in 2024, and $1.9 billion in 2025.
Johnson is shifting the blame for his city’s financial crisis onto the federal government, citing their failure to provide aid to the asylum-seekers as the root cause.
According to Chicago’s “New Arrivals Situational Dashboard,” over 39,000 have entered the city since August 2022.
And according to Easley, it is decisions like these that will cause Democrats to feel the hurt in November.
“We are looking forward to bringing back Donald John Trump Sr. as our 47th president,” Easley said. “He’s the only president who has a plan to close the southern border, which is going to cut off the pipeline of human and drug trafficking that’s flooding the West side of Chicago, and we cannot wait to get you back in office. Mr. President, please come see us in Chicago.”
Johnson’s job may also be on the line, as a group of citizens is trying to put an initative on the ballot this November to change state law to allow the city to recall a mayor. Illinois law currently only allows the governor to be recalled.
Chicagoans have every right to be upset by this proposal. It seems like the city is putting the priorities of illegal immigrants over its own citizens.
While citizens are pleading for the city to use its resources to stop crime, provide education to children and deal with the opioid epidemic, the city instead has decided to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars to fund illegal immigrants arriving in the city.
And these problems have been exacerbated by the policies of Democrats like Brandon Johnson.
Johnson and the city council are showing who they really are with this move. They may claim to have the best interest of Chicago residents in mind, but they evidently don’t.
Taxpayer dollars should first and foremost go toward providing the necessary resources to the taxpayers themselves.
Easley perfectly summed this up in the beginning of her remarks, when she quoted Timothy 5:8.
“But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.”
The fix to this problem is simple: Stop voting in Democrats, who do not care about their constituents, and instead vote for those who are actually going to put Americans first.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
