Frustrated Chicago Democrat calls for Windy City's sanctuary city status to be scrapped because funds for low-income locals are being 'divested' into worsening migrant crisis

Cata Truss wants Chicago to turn away migrants instead of paying for themShe successfully sued the city to block a local park becoming a migrant shelterChicago spent $156 million on the crisis and still has 14,200 in its 28 shelters

A Democrat who successfully sued Chicago to block a local park being turned into a migrant shelter wants the city’s sanctuary status revoked.

Cata Truss, a government employee in the Chicago neighborhood of Austin, complained too much money was being spent on immigrants.

Chicago is struggling to care for more than 34,000 asylum-seekers bussed in from the border by Texas Governor Greg Abbott over the past 18 months.

The city has spent $156 million on the crisis and still has 14,200 migrants in its 28 shelters, and is fighting with the state of Illinois about where to build more.

Shelters in converted warehouses were filled to the brim with new arrivals living in poor conditions, leading to the city commandeering other venues.

Cata Truss, a government employee in the Chicago neighborhood of Austin, complained too much money was being spent on immigrants

The city has spent $156 million on the crisis and still has 14,200 migrants in its 28 shelters, and is fighting with the state of Illinois about where to build more

Among them was a field house at Amundsen Park, in Austin, where local youth are kept out of trouble playing football and kids go to daycare.

Truss and Gerald Harris, who coaches the teens in football at the park, sued the city with their neighbors last October.

Handwriting the lawsuit in a notebook, she argued the field house was ‘designated for recreational use within the community’ and nothing else.

City officials later abandoned the plan, and say they have ‘no plans’ to turn Amundsen Park into a migrant shelter.

Now Truss wants Chicago residents to stop paying for more migrants, as thousands more are bussed in, and start turning them away.

‘There is no moneys to take care of the migrants, nor is there moneys to take care of the people that are there. And so we have a mess on our hands,’ she told Fox News.

‘This is the sentiment from the city of Chicago: We would like to have our status as a sanctuary city removed. We would also like to see a better plan in place.’

Residents were furious their neighborhood’s ‘crown jewel’, Amundsen Park, would be taken away to house migrants, and Truss (left) and others sued the city and won

Truss wants Chicago residents to stop paying for more migrants, as thousands more are bussed in, and start turning them away

Mayor Brandon Johnson himself says the huge influx of migrants is unsustainable , but he can’t turn them away because Chicago is a ‘sanctuary city’

Truss said residents of low income communities were sick of seeing their neighborhoods and schools be ‘divested’ of funding to finance the migrant crisis.

She claimed a ‘a lot of us (Democrats) are jumping ship’ and she didn’t understand why Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson hadn’t changed his strategy.

‘He has to have regrets, because people have regrets. We are not happy with what is happening here,’ she said.

Johnson insists the city would not open any more migrant shelters, and called on Illinois Governor JB Pritzker to make good on promises to build its own ones.

The plan is linked to Johnson’s new policy of only letting migrants stay in city-run shelters for 60 days before they are evicted to other accommodation.

The first evictions were supposed to be on Monday, but were twice delayed until February 1 due to harsh weather hitting Chicago.

About 8,000 eviction notices went out, but 710 received further extensions, and the deadline may be pushed back again with more freezing temperatures forecast.

Illinois said it would build shelters for 2,200 migrants using state money, but Pritzker claimed this week the city was yet to specify where it wanted them build, and ‘we can’t help if they don’t identify those locations’.

Harris was one of many residents who protested the new shelter, and when that didn’t work, he sued

A community meeting opposing the shelter taking over Amundsen Park

The plan is linked to Johnson’s new policy of only letting migrants stay in city-run shelters for 60 days before they are evicted to other accommodation. This is one of the 8,000 sent out so far, with the deadline pushed back to February 1

Johnson insisted his government did tell the state ‘a number of locations that they can build a shelter at’ – including outside Chicago.

‘And you know, again, just keep in mind that the state of Illinois can build a shelter anywhere in the state of Illinois. So, the state does not have to build a shelter in Chicago,’ he said at a press conference this week.

The prospect of migrant shelters being built outside Chicago city limits in outer suburbs has the smaller municipalities that run them on edge.

Josh McBroom, a conservative councilman in the wealthy city of Naperville, went viral this week after asking rich residents to volunteer to house migrants.

‘In light of the fact, I’m not going to support using other people’s money to house or aid – I do know that there’s a lot of people that do care, and I think we live in a compassionate community,’ he told a January 16 council meeting.

‘So before we go down the road of, you know, following suit on some of these other cities are taking action on, my idea would be – let’s find out, let’s find out who’s willing to help.’

McBroom proposed creating a signup sheet that Naperville locals with extra space in their homes could fill out to volunteer.

‘We hear from people that tell us we should do more. So we do have a very affluent community, a lot of big homes, and what I’d like to do is direct staff to create a sign-up sheet so for individuals that would be willing to house migrant families,’ he said.

‘And if there’s people that would do that, God bless them. So if we could raise awareness in that way, I think we need to find out. I think we need to find out who would be willing to house migrant families.’

Josh McBroom, a conservative councilman in the wealthy city of Naperville, went viral this week after asking rich residents to volunteer to house migrants. He didn’t expect any would and just said it to make a point

McBroom shared this popular Simpsons meme mocking Chicago residents who supported migrant-friendly policies then changed their mind once they arrived in their neighborhoods

McBroom will pilloried by anti-immigrant Republicans online, who didn’t understand that his comments were an elaborate troll of liberal residents.

‘It was a challenge to those who support open border policy to live their virtues. For anyone here who missed the nuance, progressives are laughing at you,’ he explained on Twitter.

‘They have been quiet on this, because they want no part of it. Which was the point.’

McBroom wrote that he expected no one would actually volunteer, and he just wanted to highlight their supposed hypocrisy.

‘I never supported open border policy. Many did. They have signs in their yard advertising it. I think it’s on them to help out, open their homes. Why don’t they want to?’ he wrote.

‘Does it even need to be clear where I stand? We aren’t spending tax dollars. Ok, compassion crowd, here is a sign up sheet, take in a migrant family on your own dime. You already know, zero will sign up. See?’

Mayor Johnson himself says the huge influx of migrants is unsustainable, but he can’t turn them away because Chicago is a ‘sanctuary city’.

He blamed both the Biden Administration and Texas for his city struggling to care for the about 15,000 asylum-seekers crammed into 28 shelters across the city.

Governor Abbott has sent more than 25,300 migrants to Chicago since August 2022, on buses.

Chicago tried to have them arrive at designated locations during business hours and impounding buses that didn’t follow these rules.

However, bus companies responded by dropping off migrants as far as 60 miles from Chicago, and Abbott started sending them on charter flights.

Five-year-old Jean Carlo Martinez Rivero fell ill while at the Pilsen migrant shelter and was pronounced dead on arrival in hospital days later

Conditions in Chicago’s migrant shelters have been under a microscope since five-year-old boy Jean Carlo Martinez Rivero died on December 17.

Johnson maintained there was ‘no evidence the condition of the shelter caused the death of this young boy’.

Volunteers who try to help the asylum-seekers as best they can argue differently, submitting lists of concerns to city officials months before Jean’s death.

Photos and videos inside the shelter where he died showed 2,300 migrants huddled together in freezing temperatures under a leaking roof.

One video showed a young boy with what appeared to be a bandage on his head lying on a thin fold-out bed, distracting himself with a tablet.

Another shows a different child coughing and crying as they had their temperature taken and were examined by volunteers.

A third video showed water leaking from the roof and pooling on one of the beds.