The Fraternal Order of Police President in Chicago proposed Thursday to use the lobbies and open hallways in City Hall to house illegal aliens. How does that sound?

Currently, hundreds of illegal aliens are living in district police stations. As it turns out, Chicago police officers are tired of babysitting them. Catanzara said the situation is ridiculous. Migrants are using the police stations for their mailing address. How permanent is this arrangement supposed to be?

“I don’t think there’s one single one of ’em living in City Hall — whether it’s on the county lobby floor or the City Hall floor. There’s certainly plenty of space to put a couple hundred in there, but I don’t see that happening in their workspace. But they certainly have no problem putting ’em in our workspace,” Catanzara said. “Why be a hypocrite?”

Catanzara said it was “so ridiculous” that “there’s actually mail. Migrants are using police district addresses to receive their mail. They now have CPS out there recruiting migrant children to register for CPS just to have that number in the next two weeks to grab as much tax revenue as they possibly can. Whether these kids come to school or not, they don’t care. This is all a big game to far too many people.”

Yes, NGOs and government agencies are making money off the Biden border crisis. Why would they want to put a halt to the gravy train? The illegal aliens are just a means for revenue, not of humanitarian concern to them. Look at the NGOs along the southern border who are receiving federal money to provide services for illegal crossers. No one seems to care.

The number of new arrivals in the last week has increased by 6% to 1,100. They have gone to the police stations for shelter. The number is going to continue to increase, according to Deputy Chief of Staff Cristina Pacione-Zayas, the city may experience a fivefold increase in arrivals, perhaps up to 10 buses per day when the number has been two per day. The buses are coming from places like Texas where Governor Abbott is bringing attention to the open border crisis by sending illegal aliens to sanctuary cities. Chicago is one. Adding to the equation is the fact that the 2024 Democratic National Convention will be held in Chicago next August. Border state governors are trying to use such opportunities to bring attention to Biden’s border crisis.

Catanzara agrees that this is happening because of exposure to the porous border crisis. He is a Trump supporter and does not blame Governor Abbott for his actions. Instead of criticizing Abbott, Catanzara blames Governor J.B. Pritzker, the Democrat governor who declared Illinois a sanctuary state.

“It’s 360 days until this Democratic convention,” he said, “and it’s promising to build up to a real s—show, to be quite honest with you.”

“How can you criticize a governor of a state who has had to shoulder the burden of an open border, literally, in his back door and to deal with it primarily on his own? When he said, ‘Enough is enough. You guys want to say you’re sanctuary. I’m gonna start sending you the problems we’ve been dealing with, and let’s see how you like it.’ I don’t see where that’s political,” Catanzara said.

“Shame on the governor for not doing more, saying more. He’s been absolutely invisible in a lot of this,” the FOP president said.

Are Chicago police officers glorified babysitters now, like Border Patrol agents are pencil-pushing paperwork processors at the border instead of being allowed to do their jobs patrolling the border? How does any of this make our country safer and preserve law and order? Don’t Chicago police have enough problems with an easy-on-criminals mayor and rampant violent crime?

Mayor Johnson requested $250M from the state but received less than 10% of that request. Catanzara points out the hypocrisy of those who support sanctuary cities and states then don’t put their money where their mouth is. Where’s the support?

“The governor wants to make Illinois a sanctuary state. Where’s his money? He’s worth billions of dollars. … How many migrants has he taken into his countless properties and vast acreage all over the United States? Has he taken any migrant families? No. They’re all hypocrites at the end of the day,” the FOP president said.

Catanzara has warned about the possibility of an exodus of veteran police officers from the city because of Mayor Johnson’s history of being a defund the police movement supporter. So far, that hasn’t happened. It may be because Johnson has tempered his rhetoric and become more practical since he took office. The new police superintendent chosen by the mayor, for example, is a favorite of rank-and-file officers. And the FOP requested that the mayor bring back a veteran labor negotiator that the former mayor fired. He did that. The question is whether or not Johnson will shift away from a more center-of-the-aisle approach with police after the city gets past the DNC convention. How politically calculated is the mayor’s approach to working with the police department?

“Does a leopard change its spots? How do you go from such extreme positions to all the sudden more neutral, middle-of-the-road ones?” Catanzara asked.

“He has not been a fire-and-brimstone mayor like Lightfoot was, to his credit. Is that just smoke and mirrors until we get through this convention? Because they don’t want to rile everybody up before the convention. It’s hard to tell. … I guess we find out in 365 days what the real Mayor Johnson looks like,” he said.

In the meantime, maybe the mayor should have to face the consequences of his sanctuary city policy each day as he goes to work at City Hall. Let the illegal aliens move into City Hall as a daily reminder. Free up the police department to do its work.