(PatriotWise.com) — Chicago Alderman Anthony Beale is proposing that the city give voters a chance to decide whether or not Chicago remains a sanctuary city, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
Describing the current migrant crisis gripping Chicago as a “bottomless pit” that threatens to swallow city taxpayers, Beale said he will introduce a resolution in the City Council to place a binding referendum on the ballot in March, asking voters if the city should “continue to keep its designation as a Sanctuary City.”
To get the resolution on the ballot, 26 members of the City Council would have to approve it, and that is unlikely to be an easy feat in a council that is controlled by allies of Chicago’s far-left mayor, Brandon Johnson.
Alderman Beale told the Sun-Times that while he is aware that his proposal is an uphill fight, he is determined to stop the current crisis.
More than 15,000 migrants have been transferred to Chicago since the start of the crisis. Mayor Johnson recently announced that he intends to move ahead with plans to erect giant tent cities, or “winterized base camps,” that would move the over 2,000 migrants currently camping on the floors of Midway and O’Hare airports and the Chicago police station.
The late Chicago Mayor Harold Washington first issued an executive order making the city a sanctuary for illegals 38 years ago, giving non-citizens access to services while protecting them from federal immigration authorities.
But according to Alderman Beale, not once in those 38 years have officials asked Chicago voters for permission to make their city a sanctuary for illegals.
He said if Chicago voters say yes to his proposed referendum, “so be it.” He said the city can then raise everyone’s taxes and proceed to spend “hundreds of millions of dollars a year.”
Mayor Johnson’s deputy chief of staff, Cristina Pacione-Zayas, dismissed Beale’s proposed referendum as political theater. She said there is no “overnight solution” to the current crisis.
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