Chicago mayor planning border visit ‘as soon as possible’

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) said Wednesday that his administration will visit the southern U.S. border to assess the migrant situation “as soon as possible.”

At a press conference Wednesday, Johnson confirmed he would go visit the southern border “soon” but suggested he did not have concrete plans and was not ready to provide a timeframe. 

“We need to go assess the situation. Just like our team has gone to D.C. We need better coordination, quite frankly,” he said, stressing how “serious this dynamic is” on the southern border.

“Going to the border is to make sure that everybody knows that my administration is committed to making sure that we are putting together the full force of government at every single level to ensure that these families, who, by the way, they’re not illegal. They’re asylum-seekers. They are protected by international law,” Johnson said. 

Johnson was pressed repeatedly to give a sense of when he plans to visit the border and several times said “soon.”

“I am going to the border as soon as possible,” he added. “But I gotta coordinate that with running the government and making sure that my wife and children are secure as well.”

In recent months, Illinois has seen an influx of migrants, specifically in asylum-seekers. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) recently wrote a letter to the Biden administration pressing for additional help. 

In the letter Monday, Pritzker claimed that more than 15,000 migrants had arrived in Illinois in the 13 months since the first bus of asylum-seekers from the border reached the state. Johnson on Wednesday said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had sent a team to the state. 

Johnson in his remarks also stressed the burden this has on Black residents in Chicago. 

“I’m doing my part to continue to make sure that Chicagoans who have been in this city, who have needed support and particularly our Black families — I know there’s been a tremendous burden particularly on Black Chicago. I am fully aware of that,” Johnson said.

Johnson’s confirmation of his loose plans to visit the southern U.S. border comes the same week New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) intends to visit the border. Adams reportedly said his goal is to counteract the message that New York is open to migrants, and instead to make clear that the city is “at capacity” and that they should not come. 

Asked at the press conference whether his message to migrants is not to come to Chicago during winter time, Johnson said, “No.”