CHICAGO—“Right-wing extremism” in America has targeted cities run by Democrats such as himself, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said last week.
“And quite frankly,” Johnson added Tuesday, conservative extremists “have been quite intentional about going after Democratically ran [sic] cities that are led by people of color.”
Johnson’s claim is absurd on its face, but to address it we’d like to share the findings of The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project in an on-the-ground investigation in Chicago of what amounts to an invasion of illegal aliens by invitation. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
Our main goal was to investigate the local effects in Chicago of the crisis at the nation’s southern border under President Joe Biden.
We didn’t even have to venture outside the airport to spot the issue firsthand, and we didn’t have to continue to look hard to see other effects. In fact, we couldn’t avoid some of these effects between landing and takeoff.
Historic Airport Waypoint for Illegal Aliens
Chicago O’Hare International Airport, a historic transportation hub, has become a makeshift shelter and waypoint for illegal aliens.
Illegal aliens are scattered all over the hallways of O’Hare’s bus terminal, which essentially has been turned into a migration checkpoint for illegal immigrants who arrive there.
Half of the bus terminal was blocked off by black pipe and drape, and makeshift beds were there for migrants.
The nonprofit workers we approached refused to identify which immigration-related organization they work for.
We later found out this was a consistent strategy on the part of the nonprofits and the city of Chicago.
Two airport engineers who refused to be identified told us that over 600 illegal migrants come through the terminal each day, many with diseases and illnesses, particularly scabies.
Those we saw were predominantly military-age males of varying nationalities. Notably, the airport reeked and was an unsightly scene.
Workers at an airport facility for migrants refused to give us any information about who operates it. They pointed out a notice that included the name and email address of a woman, Mary May, for media inquiries.
This same notice was posted on all the other facilities for illegal aliens that we visited in Chicago.
We witnessed several family units of migrants housed in one prime location. Local residents informed us that it used to be a “destination” location because it was prime real estate.
‘It’s a Voting Replacement’
We met up with two local leaders—David Lowery Jr., co-pastor of Fernwood Community Outreach Church, and Brian Mullins, co-founder of the Black American Voters Project—for a visit to what used to be the South Shore High School building.
This perfectly functional school was shut down recently, and the city of Chicago is trying to turn it into a “migrant respite center.”
Lowery and Mullins explained how the illegal immigration crisis on Chicago’s South Side is being used as a way to replace black voters who have left. Lowery said:
That’s why the illegals are so imported, was because they wanted to replace the black community. A lot of blacks are moving out of the state. They’re moving in different areas. And so now you bring these guys in, they’re giving them houses, they’re giving them the money to buy homes and to get cars and all of that, man …
They’re really trying to bust the black community up, so that there is no black stronghold in any major cities anymore. And that’s why they brought them to the black community in the first place.
“It’s a replacement,” Mullins said. “It’s a voting replacement.”
Lowery and Mullins said the school-turned-migrant shelter on the South Side is the site of disputes and fights between the new arrivals and senior citizens who live across the street.
We also visited the Wadsworth campus, a migrant shelter in the Woodlawn neighborhood that used to be a STEM elementary school focused on science, technology, engineering, and math.
“The longer you stay around, if you walk around you see people hanging out there,” Lowery said of the Wadsworth shelter. “They try to do a good job during the daytime, they may be out. But if you come out around 5 or 6 o’clock, it’s just a hangout, a party. They’ve gotten into fights with the seniors in this building right here.”
Lowery and Mullins told us that the elementary school has been used as a long-term shelter to house the influx of illegal immigrants bused to Chicago from Texas by Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, in response to the border crisis created by Biden and his administration.
Wadsworth STEM Elementary was another perfectly functioning school in a historically black neighborhood that officials repurposed as a migrant shelter.
At a playground for the former elementary school, we spoke with some illegal aliens.
They told us that they are sending money they make back to their home countries. They recounted the dangers they faced when crossing the U.S.-Mexico border into America.
Some said they had been in the shelter for over a year.
Two days after our visit, a “suspected migrant” shot someone on the Wadsworth campus. The wounded person reportedly was in critical condition.
Protest Against Tent City
We attended a protest where outraged Chicago residents were pushing back against the government’s plans to fund a multimillion-dollar “tent city” in the middle of Brighton Park, alongside railroad tracks.
In a phone call, protest leader Ricardo Palacios told us that the tent city would hold up to 3,500 migrants.
Local residents not only were concerned about a likely huge increase in crime, Palacios said, but the safety hazard posed by thousands of tents erected right next to train tracks in the Windy City.
In a joint statement issued last Wednesday by Johnson and other city officials, the mayor said that the West Side’s Amundsen Park “will no longer [be] in consideration for a potential shelter location.”
“The city of Chicago has been working diligently to provide temporary shelter and emergency assistance for more than 23,200 asylum seekers who have been bused or flown to Chicago from other states since August 2022,” the statement from the mayor’s office says.
The statement continues: “The city continues to evaluate additional shelter capacity [for illegal aliens] on an ongoing basis and will continue to provide updates as necessary.”
However, the migrant shelter in the Brighton Park neighborhood of southwest Chicago is still under construction.
Johnson’s office told NBC 5 Chicago News last Tuesday that “GardaWorld staged materials and began placing bases for structures on the site,” adding that “framing will be erected for 1-2 structures and materials will continue to be laid out for additional structures.”
Illinois state officials announced Monday, Dec. 4, that the city temporaily had halted construction on the Brighton Park project after an environmental report found toxic contaminants in the soil.
‘Like a Third World City’
At another migrant shelter we visited, a nonprofit worker shoved our reporter friend, William J. Kelly, out of the entrance after he tried asking a question about the facility.
Shelter managers are profiting from taxpayer dollars that pay for Chicago’s migrant crisis, and they’re doing everything they can to hide what’s truly going on.
We visited another location where we were informed that only military-age males were housed, many with known criminal records.
We witnessed open-air drug use and trade. We were cautioned that this was perhaps the most dangerous location in all of Chicago, the site of several recent violent incidents.
What we witnessed was millions of dollars going to nonprofits to manage a crisis that a Democratic mayor invited to Chicago. We saw migrant families sleeping on the streets, locals infuriated with the situation, and a crisis in the brewing.
Temperatures in Chicago are about to drop precipitously for the winter months. When that happens, an untenable situation will be created in which an unknown number of illegal aliens wll be on the streets of one of the most violent cities in America.
Chicago, a historic city that will host next summer’s Democratic National Convention, has all the markings of a Third World city.
Based on our initial investigation, we believe this isn’t just a migrant crisis created by the Biden administration’s open-borders policies.
Early in November, Johnson asked for $5 billion in federal funds to house and feed the illegal aliens, but he didn’t ask Biden to stem the flow of illegal aliens coming into this once beautiful city.
The huge amount of money involved, and the tangled network of nonprofits, present all the hallmarks of corruption in a city that is well known for it.
We left Chicago with more investigative leads than we could have predicted we’d find.
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