Editorial: Chicago can be a ‘sanctuary city,’ sure. Just not in my backyard.

Two uncomfortable but incontrovertible truths are becoming evident about Chicago and its relationship with the thousands of migrants who have arrived here in recent weeks

One is that tents are inadequate when it comes to keeping families warm, obvious now as an unseasonable freeze took hold on Halloween.

The second is that Chicago is far more comfortable with its sanctuary city designation in the abstract than it is when the notion of hundreds of migrants coming to someone’s specific neighborhood is floated.

The evidence is all over the city.

When Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd, caught wind of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s suggestion to house migrants inside the luxe Hotel Chicago Downtown, at 333 N. Dearborn St. in Marina City, his rhetoric soared with indignation. “Converting the Hotel Chicago into a migrant hotel defies logic,” Reilly wrote to his constituents, describing the plan as likely to do “irreparable harm” to River North.

He wasn’t done either. “Mayor Johnson is abusing the authority of his office; is entering into illegal contracts without appropriate legislative approvals by the Chicago City Council; and is willfully violating the law by doing so,” he thundered. “Last week, a lawsuit was filed, challenging the mayor’s authority to unilaterally select properties to serve as migrant facilities.”

Extraordinary words from an alderman. And Ald. Brian Hopkins, 2nd, sang harmony to Reilly’s melody, recently railing against extending migrant housing at the Inn of Chicago: “I am hopeful that those with the decision-making power will heed the calls of myself and local residents and not renew the contract,” he said.

Just downtown aldermen responding to the complaints of well-heeled constituents? Nope.

“I told them right away that I objected to it, because there had been no community engagement,” Ald. Chris Taliaferro, 29th, told furious residents at a recent meeting in Galewood on the West Side, “and the response given to me was, ‘You’re getting it.’”

The “them”? City Hall. The “it”? A migrant shelter.

And while it’s certainly true that Taliaferro was referencing the lack of community engagement, an easy out, his community at that meeting clearly was plenty engaged. And pretty much none of them wanted a shelter in their neighborhood, period.

Need more? Here’s Ald. Silvana Tabares, 23rd, to her constituents in West Lawn, Garfield Ridge and Archer Heights: “Constructing a migrant shelter in our community is unfair to our current residents due to current population densities, overcrowding in our local neighborhood schools, and overextended public safety resources and police manpower. With these factors in mind, it is clear housing a migrant shelter here would be unwise, unsafe and irresponsible.”

You can’t say it much clearer than that.

Not exactly a welcome mat for migrants poking their heads out of tents and seeing falling snow on Oct. 31.

So what’s going on? It’s not hard to see. Most ordinary Chicagoans don’t want those shelters in their backyards anymore than the people of Wilmette and Evanston who live near the proposed new Northwestern football stadium want concerts. NIMBYism has many faces.

In the case of Chicago and its migrants, aldermen clearly have intuited electoral danger from this crisis. According to reports of several of these meetings, some of the angered constituents, such as those in Taliaferro’s ward, have been using words like “vote them out.” And there are few phrases aldermen like less than that.

The problem, of course, is that no one actually wants to come out and say any of this. And, uncomfortable as it may be for this city to admit, this plays right into the political instincts of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and others who figured “sanctuary cities” might be less than enthusiastic when forced to confront the kinds of numbers familiar to communities nearer the border. We dislike what Abbott chose to do with human beings in need, but he calculated what would happen and it is pretty much coming true.

The big issue, of course, is how to respond to all this fury, and also how to care for people just trying to keep their kids warm.

We’ve said many times that Chicago should not be shouldering all of this alone. While Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle has justly noted the county’s costly burden in providing medical care for migrants, she’s also said that most Cook County locations outside the city won’t get involved without clear funding. Even then, we suspect, the same issues would occur as in the city. We’ve also said that there should be a role here for the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, which knows more about emergency logistics than anyone.

The state of Illinois, it appears, has mostly punted. Lawmakers have indicated migrant care is off the agenda at the veto session this month in Springfield. Maybe in the spring, goes the thinking, but the immediate problem here is the winter.

So it all comes down, really, to Mayor Johnson, at least in the short term.

He is going to have to abandon his typical platitudes about Chicago’s welcoming spirit and face up to the reality that migrant shelters do impact the quality of life of those around them. That entails spending some major political capital in brokering a citywide plan that might actually work for the winter and that every ward can get behind. If aldermen sense that they are being singled out for trouble at home, as now is the case, they won’t look at the big picture.

We see some promise in the plan to acquire vacant properties at 2241 S. Halsted St. in Pilsen and 115th and Halsted streets on Chicago’s Far South Side and create housing that, as Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, 25th, told Politico, could then become “part of a planned development with affordable housing.” That makes sense.

So do four walls for the winter, rather than canvas, unless the heating system is top-drawer.

But all of this requires Johnson to talk reality to the people of Chicago, either through the media, which he apparently hates to do, or directly through some kind of major address. And it requires him to answer reasonable questions. This is the job he was elected to do.

Further, Johnson still needs to use whatever influence he has to get the state, the feds and, yes, the county more involved. After all, temporary medical facilities were stood up fast in Chicago during the COVID crisis.

Arguing about the sanctuary city issue doesn’t change the short-term problem.

Migrants are here. Many have children. All of them feel the cold.

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