There is money for the taking in Chicago's "51st Ward.
“Eyes down round and round, let's all sit and watch the money go round, everyone take a little bit here and a little bit there,” The Kinks, ‘Moneygoround.’
Since the dawn of the migrant crisis, or if you prefer, the mass wave of illegal crossings at the southern border beginning in 2021, it's believed that nearly 50,000 illegals, who Chicago’s leftist politicians call our "new neighbors," have settled in Chicago.
That's slightly less than the population of a Chicago ward.
It's easy to see why these migrants, most of whom have traveled here from depressed and declining states such as Venezuela, have come to America. This “51st Ward” seeks a better life, one that is unachievable in their home countries. Some of them are clearly criminals, including the two South American migrants who last month allegedly robbed, tortured, and murdered a Norwood Park man they met on a dating app.
We know the migrants' motives. What about the Chicago public officials who are waving them in, the ones who want them to remain here?
What's in it for them?
That's where the "Moneygoround" comes in.
Those politicians, as well as their allies in charge of NGOs and not-for-profits, are in the game for the money and the power. Oh sure, there are at varying degrees there are altruistic motives driving their actions, but only up to a point.
Last week on John Kass' Chicago Way podcast, Alderman Ray Lopez (15th), one of the few reputable alderman remaining in the Chicago City Council, laid down the facts to Kass and his listeners:
“You know, I think at the heart, John, at the heart of that white hyper-progressive liberalism is the need to feel like they're taking care of the poor black and brown folks, that messianic complex that runs deep within their politics. And I think that is why they are fighting so hard to protect the tens of thousands of migrant asylum seekers that have come here over the last four years, in a way that they're not even trying to protect the undocumented Mexicans or Asians that have been here for generations. They're trying to protect those individuals, in my opinion, because those people that are here come more dependent on government, and therefore more dependent on social services, programs and money than anyone that's been here getting nothing — and still somehow managing to scrap out a living in the United States.
They need that dependency to fuel their agendas, to fuel their narratives, to fuel their not-for-profits and that whole complex that exists, to feed off the pain of others. That's why they're fighting for those folks so blatantly against what everyone else believes.”
Building on Lopez' comments, it's not just the “white hyper-progressive” self-appointed messiahs who have their hands out.
The far-left Chicago Teachers Union is calling for more money to be spent on migrant causes. More migrants mean more students and higher enrollment means more money rolling into CPS schools.
Two years ago, while a guest on the Ben Joravsky Show podcast, Alderman Angela Clay (46) spoke not of the needs of migrant students in schools, but rather, how they are a path for more funding for Chicago Public Schools. And that means a need for more teachers — dues-paying Chicago Teachers Union members, of course.
“Yeah, so I think this, again, is an opportunity that we're talking about with our new neighbors coming. A lot of people can complain, but y'all, CPS is thriving, okay? Our schools welcomed our new neighbors with open arms, which means more money, which means the entire school benefits, which means that we get to get creative and get language arts, and we get to get resources in the form of more soccer. We get more resources overall.”
The CTU endorsed Clay in her 2023 aldermanic race, and it contributed $55,000 to her campaign fund.
Coincidentally, the same year the Biden administration opened the southern border, Russia invaded Ukraine. Tens of thousands of refugees fleeing that conflict settled in Chicago.
That opened the door for a wrong-headed, race-baiting scolding last month from Mayor Brandon Johnson:
“What I do find interesting is that when 30,000 Ukrainians sought asylum here in the city of Chicago, nobody said a mumbling word. But all of a sudden indigenous people who are trying to get to a land that was robbed from them through colonization, they want me as a black man to be mad at them?”
Johnson probably thinks he hit a home run with that astonishing statement, but in reality, he ran the bases backward after a swing and a miss. The mayor's oratory effort amounted to nothing, except for cementing his reputation as a fool who resorts to the race card whenever he can't advance his agenda. It's a stunt Johnson likely learned from his mentor, Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates.
Frank Sandoval of the Illinois Venezuela Alliance laid out the truth about the Ukrainians who have settled here since 2021. "They have relatives over here, they have family over here, they have friends over here," he explained.
Also, Ukrainian churches assisted in their resettlement in Chicago, which before the start of the Ukraine-Russia War, had the second largest Ukrainian community of America's cities. The NGOs and the not-for-profits might have helped them a bit, but the Ukrainian refugees, some of whom will probably return home when the war ends, don't seem likely to end up on long term government assistance — or to need regular aid from those NGOs and not-for-profits.
So yes, Mayor Johnson, the Ukrainian refugee situation is different. Fleeing war is far different than journeying to the United States to become wards of the welfare system. Much different.
Has Johnson ever called the recent arrivals from Ukraine “new neighbors?”
Johnson, in one of his first moves as mayor, created the new position of Deputy Mayor for Immigrant, Migrant, and Refugee Rights.
Immediately after Donald Trump was sworn in as president, Johnson declared that Chicago won’t be cooperating with the new administration, telling NPR in regard to federal enforcement of immigration law, “None of our sister agencies or our city departments will cooperate or intervene in any way or any shape or any form.”
We've heard, with a steady drumbeat, from Johnson and others, that Chicago is a sanctuary city. And that we must take these people in. Harold Washington, in an executive order, declared the city as such. Chicago's first black mayor's executive order was later codified by the City Council.
Since Harold Washington declared Chicago a sanctuary city, then that status is sacrosanct, right?
Around the time Clay appeared on the Joravsky podcast with Clay, Alderman Anthony Beale (9) shot down the Harold Washington canard during an appearance on the Phillip Scott podcast:
“Now, I guarantee you that if Harold Washington was here today, what he signed into law as an executive order is not what he intended for today. And so, when people say, well, Harold Washington did this, times were different. We didn't have people come into this city by the thousands”
In other words, what worked 40 years ago doesn't necessarily work now. And Washington never said Chicago should be a major landing pad for border crossers.
On the federal level, the government-NGO Moneygoround is real, as the findings from DOGE have shown.
It's happening in Chicago too. And it’s quite likely that very little of the $40 million-a-month Chicago was spending a year ago on the migrant crisis has made its way to our city's "new neighbors,” the “51st Ward.”
For others — meaning the governing class and the connected class — there is a lot of money to be made from other people's misery.
And as Paul Vallas wrote this week for Chicago Contrarian, Chicago needs its own DOGE.
