Chicago's progressive Dem Mayor Brandon Johnson unveils plans to spend another $70M of taxpayer cash on 38,000 migrants who've arrived in city, on top of $150M already set aside for 2024

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is looking to spend a further $70 million to help the 38,000 migrants who have made their way to the city since 2022. 

Mayor Johnson briefed city council members on plans to push through the funds to keep the city's response to helping migrants afloat. 

Sources familiar with the briefings have told the Chicago Tribune that the mayor's team hopes to allocate $70 million from city surpluses. 

If approved by the council, the $70 million would add to the $150 million already set aside in the 2024 budget for the response to the migrant problem. 

Officials for Johnson noted that budget cuts would not be needed to fund it at the moment, as they have planned for a scenario where they would dip into surpluses.

Mayor Johnson has began briefing City Council members on plans to push through the funds to keep the afloat the city's response to helping those afloat

Yanis Vasques, 3, center, sits next to her mother Veronica Vasques, 23, left, both from Venezuela, while she sells food outside a migrant shelter on the Lower West Side on February, 15, in Chicago

Children cover their heads as they sit outside of a migrant shelter Wednesday, March 13, in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago

They told officials that the the money would primarily go toward staffing, leases and food, which have always been the biggest expenditures.  

State, county and city officials said in February that $321 million would be required to sustain the migrant operation throughout the end of the year. 

The state and county pledged around $250 million of that, leaving officials $70 million short of their projected amount. 

Johnson originally agreed to provide that to cover the shortfall before backing off, telling reporters: 'There are a number of matters that need to be worked through. 

'No one in the state of Illinois, in this country, is questioning Mayor Brandon Johnson’s commitment to this mission.'

Governor J.B. Pritzker was asked by the Tribune about Johnson asking the city council for more money. 

The governor defended his record saying he had been 'working very hard at addressing the crisis of the incoming migrants that have been sent here from Texas.' 

Pritzker added: 'They're being treated as best as they can be. It's not as if the city has fallen down on providing work. And so this is just a continuation of what the city's offered us.' 

Governor J.B. Pritzker was asked by the Tribune about Johnson asking the City Council for more money

A young child sleeps on the floor of a makeshift shelter operated by the city at O'Hare International Airport on August 31, 2023 

According to the city, nearly $300 million has been spent on the migrant crisis since the first bus from Texas Governor Greg Abbott arrived in the Windy City. 

The number of asylum seekers in city shelters appears to be falling after peaking at 15,000 in December, when officials warned that the system had 'reached capacity.' 

Johnson at the time joined the mayors of New York and Denver, which are also inundated with migrants, to call for the crisis to be declared a federal emergency. 

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

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.

Venezuelan migrants were bused into Chicago by Texas Governor Greg Abbott this past December

Arriving migrants were forced to sleep in Chicago police stations earlier on in the crisis  

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'.

Last week tuberculosis cases were detected at migrant facilities following a recent measles outbreak in shelters. 

The Chicago Department of Public Health did not disclose the exact number of cases or which shelter it originated from.

Officials confirmed that 'a small number of cases' were reported 'in a few different shelters' around the city.

'These outbreaks happen in close quarters, people who are living close to one another,' associate professor of medicine, Infectious Diseases and Global Health at the University of Chicago Dr. Aniruddha Hazra told Fox 32 Chicago.

Hazra said the situation is concerning, but that the public does not need to panic.