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NAPERVILLE, Ill. - A suburban lawmaker outside Chicago proposed that residents be able to sign up to host migrants in their homes, noting, "We do have a very affluent community."
Naperville Councilman Josh McBroom voiced the notion during a city council meeting last week, and a conservative account reacted to the clip on X on Tuesday.
"In light of the fact, I’m not going to support using other people’s money to house or [for] aid. I do know that there’s a lot of people that do care, and I think we live in a compassionate community, so before we go down the road of, you know, following suit on some of these other cities are taking action on, my idea would be, let’s find out, let’s find out who’s willing to help," McBroom said.
"You know, we do hear from constituents on both sides of this; what are we going to do to preemptively stop this? And then we hear from people that tell us we should do more, so we do have a very affluent community, a lot of big homes, and what I’d like to do is direct staff to create a sign-up sheet … for individuals that would be willing to house migrant families," he continued. "And if there’s people that would do that, God bless them. So, if we could raise awareness in that way, I think we need to find out. I think we need to find out who would be willing to house migrant families. That would be my new business. I would be looking for support from the diocese. Any questions, discussion, happy to have that."
Reached for comment by Fox News Digital on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Naperville city manager's office said in a statement, "Naperville’s City Council asked staff to prepare a future agenda item, so Council may consider whether to create a sign-up opportunity for residents to volunteer to host migrants. City Council has not made any final decisions or taken any final action on this issue. It has not yet been determined the date of the City Council meeting this will be discussed. Until Council provides more direction, no further details will be available."
In Massachusetts, Gov. Maura Healey, who declared a state of emergency over the migrant crisis during the summer, asked residents in August to consider sponsoring migrant families by hosting them in their homes as the state's shelter system reached capacity, according to local reports.
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Chicago mayor's new migrant plan
Thirty-four thousand asylum seekers have arrived in Chicago, and there is no indication that the number of new arrivals is likely to slow any time soon.
X owner Elon Musk warned this month that the government could go beyond voluntary sign-ups and force residents to house migrants in their homes should they run out of shelter and hotel space. Musk's comment came in response to New York City moving around 2,000 migrants from a shelter at Floyd Bennett Field to a Brooklyn public high school overnight during a storm, prompting school officials to close the building to students the next day and implement remote learning. Parents were outraged over the loss of learning ahead of crucial college entry exams.
Another Chicago suburb has been battered by a string of recent crimes committed by migrants who live in or near the Windy City, according to the police chief of Oak Brook, Illinois, who revealed just days ago that nearly 40 migrants had been arrested there from October to mid-January, mostly for alleged property crimes.
Chicago estimates about 38,000 migrants have arrived in the Windy City over the past 18 months as tens of thousands more come to Democrat-led cities such as New York and Denver from the U.S.-Mexico border. Democrat city leaders have largely placed blame on Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who says he's lifting the burden from small border communities through his bussing operation to send migrants to areas that have previously claimed to be sanctuary destinations for illegal immigrants.
The Biden administration, however, is facing mounting criticism over its handling of the border crisis during an election year.
House Republicans, vying to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, note that under President Biden's watch, the U.S. tripled the number of border encounters to 1.9 million in 2021, followed the next year by 2.7 million, and then 3.2 million apprehensions in fiscal 2023. And those figures represent just the migrants detected crossing the border; Republicans note that Border Patrol agents have been pulled off patrol to process large groups, leaving hundreds of miles of border with no security.