Amid migrant arrivals, Chicago mayor says he would visit border
- Chicago has continued to take in migrants bused from the nation's border
- Mayor Johnson said he needs to visit the border to assess the situation
- It's unclear when a trip might happen
FILE – Immigrants from Venezuela are reflected in a marble wall while taking shelter at the Chicago Police Department’s 16th District station on Monday, May 1, 2023. Nearly 1,600 migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. will be relocated from Chicago police stations to winterized camps with massive tents under a plan by Mayor Brandon Johnson, according to a report released Thursday, Sept. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, FIle)
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(NewsNation) – Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has plans to visit the U.S.-Mexico border as buses of migrants continue to arrive in the nation’s third-largest city.
Johnson spoke Wednesday about the ongoing migrant arrivals and confirmed a trip to the border is in the future. He did not provide a specific timeline of when or where the trip would take place.
“We need to go assess the situation,” Johnson said. “Just like our team has gone to D.C. We need better coordination, quite frankly.”
Johnson went on to say Chicago’s “population shift’ is the result of failed federal policies that now are impacting Chicagoans in “a very dramatic way.”
“I know there has been a tremendous burden, particularly on Black Chicago,” Johnson said. “I am fully aware of that. Administration after administration has taken away from Black people. Not mine.”
Chicago is just one of a handful of nonborder cities receiving a growing number of migrants, as many as 20 buses in a single day.