To his credit, and unlike too many other blue state Democratic mayors, Chicago’s Brandon Johnson has at least been trying to do something about the human flood of illegal migrants and not just ignoring the problem. Granted, his efforts thus far haven’t produced much in the way of results and many Windy City residents have been loudly taking Johnson to task over the deteriorating conditions. Johnson has thus far been frustrated in his efforts to stop the busloads of migrants arriving in Chicago from the southern border, primarily from Texas. So now he’s cooked up a new plan. If he can’t thwart Governor Greg Abbott in Texas, maybe he can scare off the bus drivers. He has filed dozens of lawsuits against the bus operators, alleging that they are breaking hastily imposed rules over when, where, and how buses are allowed to arrive and discharge passengers. (Yahoo News)

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration has quietly begun filing lawsuits over what it has described as “rogue buses” transporting migrants, an escalation the mayor has coupled with an attempt to further crack down on the transportation companies.

The stepped-up enforcement is the Johnson administration’s latest effort to address the influx of new arrivals, which has become one of the mayor’s most vexing challenges. The care of more than 24,400 migrants who have arrived in Chicago since August 2022 has taken on heightened urgency as winter sets in, and tested the limits of how welcoming the city can be.

The city has filed 55 lawsuits since it implemented new rules about when and where buses can arrive in mid-November, the Law Department said. The lawsuits address 77 total buses accused of violating the rules, and public records show at least some cases are seeking fines against the bus companies.

The Mayor isn’t saying the quiet part out loud (yet), but what he’s really hoping for is some sort of “Remain in Texas” policy. That’s obviously not going to fly and the courts are not stepping in to thwart Governor Greg Abbott’s regular exports from the border. But the bussing rules that Chicago is rushing to put in place and the fines they seek to impose on the bussing companies seem to be flagrantly illegal.

The bussing restrictions are fairly severe. Chicago is demanding that the buses from Texas arrive at a rate of no more than two per hour. And dropoffs are limited to between 8 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. That still adds up to 19 buses per day or several hundred migrants. But busy bus stations traditionally handle a lot more traffic than two buses per hour, particularly during peak drive times. These sorts of restrictions fly in the face of public travel norms and appear, dare I say… discriminatory.

What Johnson is attempting here is a sort of economic warfare, or perhaps economic civil war. He can’t stop Abbott from sending the buses to Chicago, so he’s threatening economic punishment on the bussing companies that are simply performing their normal function. He apparently feels that if he can frighten or damage the companies enough, they will begin refusing to provide service in Texas.

We’re talking about basic transportation and the freedom of movement here. Certainly, the illegal migrants shouldn’t be free to move about in the first place and should really have been sent back to Mexico. But once they’ve been caught and released, they are being given that freedom by the Biden administration and they’re taking advantage of it. Many of them have heard that Chicago is a “sanctuary” city so they want to head north to take them up on their offer. Abbott’s buses offer a free and easy way to make the trip.

I hope the bus companies all have competent legal representation. They should be fighting back against this type of lawfare in court. They didn’t cause the Biden border crisis and they similarly did not cause the current migrant housing crisis in Chicago. They are simply accepting fees to transport people from Texas to Illinois. There’s nothing illegal or unusual about that at all. And if Chicago isn’t imposing the same severe restrictions on busloads of legitimate citizens coming from other states, this entire scheme should be found unconstitutional.