Brandon Johnson lashes out at Texas for sending more illegal immigrants to Chicago

On Sunday, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson claimed that Texas Governor Greg Abbott was sowing "seeds of chaos" by sending illegal immigrants from his state to the Windy City. Abbott has taken to removing illegal immigrants who cross the US-Mexico border into Texas under the lax border policies of the Biden administration and has been sending them to cities that have proclaimed themselves to be sanctuary cities.

These include New York City and Chicago. Abbott also recently signed a law making it illegal to cross the international border into Texas, facilitating the arrest of illegal immigrants.

In an interview with Face the Nation, host Margaret Brennan asked Johnson about reports of a plane from Texas landing in Chicago carrying immigrants, and what happens next. 

"What we have is clearly, clearly an international and federal crisis that local governments are being asked to subsidize, and this is unsustainable, none of our local economies are positioned to be able to carry on such a mission," Johnson said. "And what we have attempted to do is to create structure and some coordination around this—this humanitarian crisis." 

"The governor of Texas, Governor Abbott, is determined to continue to sow seeds of chaos." Johnson continued, "And last night, and several nights before, a number of buses continued to arrive in the city of Chicago, throughout the country without any coordination."

Johnson said the Texas governor sending illegal immigrants to various cities is a "very dangerous task." It is "certainly a matter of—of not just—of our national security. But it's the type of chaos that this governor is committed to administering," He noted. 

In a statement on X, Johnson described an instance this morning where illegals landed in Chicago. "This morning just after 1 a.m., a private Boeing 777 originating from San Antonio, Texas landed at the Rockford/Chicago airport carrying 350 asylum seekers. There was no communication from Texas, and the City of Chicago was alerted by authorities in Rockford regarding the flight," he said. 

"Upon landing, asylum seekers were placed on buses chartered by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and dropped in various surrounding suburbs, left to find their way to the city," Johnson noted in a second post. "This is the second recorded instance of the Texas governor transporting asylum seekers via private plane.

Johnson has repeatedly blamed others, including Gov. Abbott, for the migrant crisis his sanctuary city faces. In a speech last week, Johnson said, "We have a governor, an elected official in the state of Texas that is placing families on buses without shoes, cold, wet, tired, hungry, afraid, traumatized, and then they come to the city of Chicago where we have homelessness, we have mental health clinics that have been shut down and closed." 

"The governor of Texas needs to take a look in the mirror of the chaos that he is causing for this country," he added. 

Sanctuary cities like Chicago and New York, have felt the weight of the Biden administration's border crisis heavily. Both cities recently placed restrictions on charter bus companies that bring busloads of immigrants to their cities and fail to give an advanced notice. 

New York City Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement alongside Johnson, and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, "We cannot allow buses with people needing our help to arrive without warning at any hour of day and night." He added, "To be clear, this is not stopping people from coming, but about ensuring the safety of migrants and making sure they can arrive in a coordinated and orderly way."