Chicago Voters Demand Uncle Sam Pay the Tab
Our read
When virtue signaling meets the balance sheet, the balance sheet always wins. For years, big-city politicians treated 'sanctuary' status as a free moral upgrade, but now that the bill has arrived, they are desperately trying to forward the invoice to the federal government.
What happened
Chicago voters will decide on a ballot measure asking whether the city should sue or aggressively pursue the federal government to claw back hundreds of millions of dollars spent on the migrant crisis.
The brief
This ballot measure is the ultimate admission of policy bankruptcy: you cannot run a welfare state with open borders, and you certainly cannot fund it on a municipal tax base.
Key findings
The ballot measure has sparked intense local debate and national media coverage as Chicago becomes the most prominent sanctuary city to formally attempt to claw back migrant
The sides
- Local Taxpayers
Federal policy created the border crisis, so Washington must reimburse the local communities forced to pay for it.
- Federal Bureaucrats
Immigration management is a shared humanitarian effort, and local municipalities cannot simply sue their way out of national challenges.
Why now
Why now. The ballot measure has sparked intense local debate and national media coverage as Chicago becomes the most prominent sanctuary city to formally attempt to claw back migrant spending from the Biden administration.