Angry crowd shouts down City Council members during migrant debate

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s allies tried Tuesday to approve their own, softer version of a non-binding referendum on Chicago’s burgeoning migrant crisis, but failed after being shouted down by an angry crowd ordered forcibly removed from City Council chambers.

“Sergeant-at-arms, clear the room,” Rules Committee Chair Michelle Harris (8th) shouted after Chicagoans opposed to housing the new arrivals shouted down Council members on both sides of the issue.

Several people in the gallery, including a woman in tears, were escorted out by security after another observer singled them out as supporters of welcoming migrants.

“These are the people who are against us,” a man shouted, pointing at those being escorted out and waving other angry crowd members over.

Loud boos followed and persisted until the sergeant at arms restored some semblance of order about 10 minutes later. Amid the chaos, the meeting was recessed until Thursday Nov. 16. That’s the day after the City Council is scheduled to take a final vote on Johnson’s $16.6 billion budget.

“Do you want a race war?” one woman shouted at the height of the vitriol.

Ald. Anthony Beale (9th) has been trying for weeks to put an advisory referendum on the March ballot asking voters if Chicago should remain a sanctuary city.

Frantic efforts to prevent that from happening at a special City Council meeting last week ultimately resulted in the bullying and manhandling allegations against Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th) that forced Ramirez-Rosa to resign as the mayor’s floor leader and Zoning Committee chair.

Tuesday’s Rules Committee meeting was called to substitute Beale’s simple sanctuary city question for a softer, more innocuous version.

The mayor’s version would say: “Should the city of Chicago impose reasonable limits on the city’s providing resources for migrant sheltering, such as funding caps and shelter occupancy time limits, if necessary to prevent a substantial negative impact on Chicago’s current residents?”

Ald. Ray Lopez (15th) said that lengthy and toothless question is fundamentally flawed.

“Should we limit what we spend? ... What happens when you reach the limit? What are you going to do when you say, we’ve spent all the money we’re willing to spend and you still have buses arriving here?” Lopez said, raising his voice to be heard above the shouting from the gallery before it was cleared.

“This question does not answer the issue as to why people continue to be shipped to the city of Chicago. And they are shipped here because we remain unabashed in saying a welcoming city, a sanctuary city. Even though Republicans and Democrats are now taking full advantage of that.”

As the shouting continued, Lopez said, “I, too, do not support this resolution because it automatically sets the city of Chicago up for failure. We need to vote this down. We need a clean referendum that simply puts the question to all of Chicago: ‘Shall we remain a sanctuary city?’ Because what we know and what so many in this room fear is that the true coalition between the African American and Latino communities does exist around this question because both communities want an end to it.”

Beale noted Chicago is now spending “up to $40 million-a-month” on a migrant crisis that has prompted Johnson to race to open winterized base camps in impoverished Black and Hispanic neighborhoods that don’t want those tent camps before temperatures plummet to get asylum seekers off police stations floors.

The intense public anger that is now on display at every City Council and committee meeting is because of efforts to “shut people out from having a voice,” Beale said.

“When you don’t want the people to hear you — when you don’t want the people to have a voice — you have chaos. … That’s why you’re seeing the chaos in this city. Because you’re trying to silence the voice of certain people who just want to be heard,” Beale said.

“Give the people of Chicago a voice, you all. Give the people a chance to say `yes’ or `no.’ We don’t want people to be disenfranchised. That’s what this is doing. This is really throwing fuel on the fire.”

After the chaos, most public observers for the ensuing full Council meeting were relegated to a balcony viewing area that’s glassed off from the chamber.