.png)
Whatever your thoughts about President Donald Trump, good or bad, one of the principal reasons for his reelection in 2024 was broad dissatisfaction regarding immigration. Americans are simply apoplectic about the border. Furthermore, Americans are even more irate at the city level. City after city controlled by progressive, far-left mayors have seen their local budgets skyrocket because of the costs associated with the care, housing, feeding, education, and medical expenses of caring for migrants.
Of the dozens of cities exhausted with this benighted approach, chief among them is none other than Chicago. Chicago spent more than $600 million on migrants in 2024. Mayor Johnson has angered Chicagoans with migrant shelters, allocations for housing, EBT cards, education for their children, their local unlicensed businesses, and everything else that the city has spent money on for this community. No matter how vociferous the objections have been regarding his migrant agenda, Johnson has not relented. In fact, he has been so brazen and tone-deaf that he asserts his resistance to the incoming President’s deportation agenda is standing up for Chicago’s values.
That is why this January 20 inauguration day is so important. This mayor’s continued intransigence has drawn the ire of Trump and his immigration czar, Tom Homan. So much so that both have stated that on Tuesday, January 21, they are going to have ICE agents on the ground in Chicago. With all of the blunders that this mayor has committed—from the migrant crisis to the scrutiny about the CPS contract, his mismanagement of local crime, and the recent downgrading of the city’s credit rating by S&P to BBB—he does not have the bandwidth to manage yet another self-imposed crisis. Homan has gone as far as to state that he will arrest Johnson if there is any interference in D.C.’s mass deportation agenda.I have long since stated that Johnson is the wrong man for the moment.
Now Chicago is going to have a national spotlight with the full force of the federal government weighing on Johnson, and there is no sanctuary for him in Chicago. His approval rating is a dismal 14%. Governor J.B. Pritzker has chided Johnson for not communicating with Springfield, and House Leader Emmanuel Welch has advised Johnson to prepare to hear a lot of "no's." Even Illinois State Rep. LaShawn Ford has reintroduced House Bill 1084, which would allow for recalling the Mayor of Chicago.
Johnson could find himself suffering quite the ignominious removal from office, a first in the city’s history.Johnson must feel like David entering the battle with Goliath, except instead of five smooth stones, all he has are awkward non sequiturs and thinly veiled references to the ethnicity of himself and his family with which to deflect criticism. He has the weight of the world on his shoulders right now. With no support from Chicagoans, the City Council having turned their backs on him, Springfield not listening, and now Washington D.C. targeting him, Johnson needs to do what is best for Chicago—not his legacy nor his ideology. He must resign.