Emanuel’s Choice: Whom Does He Value Most — Illegal Immigrants, or Chicago Citizens?

By threatening to pull a federal grant supporting local police, President Trump has given mayors of sanctuary cities a choice: Do they continue protecting illegal immigrants from federal ICE agents or continue receiving federal funding for their police departments?

For many cities, the answer is a simple one. The mayor delivers a speech dedicating himself to serving the “rights of all humans” and replaces the grant’s contribution out of pocket. Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti said in late March, for example, as reported by the Los Angeles Daily News, that he will fight for “the safety and dignity of all Angelenos” by preserving its sanctuary-city status. Ed Lee, mayor of San Francisco, said the same, and answered, “It’s really hard to answer that question” when asked how the city can afford the federal funding cuts.

But San Francisco and Los Angeles aren’t in financial crisis. Both maintain high credit-score ratings from Moody’s — Aa2 for Los Angeles and Aa1 for San Francisco — and relatively stable budgets. For them, the issue of affording the price of a sanctuary city is a minor one.

Rahm Emanuel has a different problem. He is mayor of a city that Moody’s ranks a precarious Ba1, classifying it as a subprime borrower. In that light, his decision, rendered in a blaze of virtue-signaling glory, is deeply irresponsible. Chicago is a financially beleaguered and crime-ridden city and cannot afford to take on more debt. But Emanuel’s insistence on maintaining Chicago as a sanctuary city will deprive it of the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant — the grant that the Trump administration is pulling, worth $3.2 million.

Illinoisans are already getting fed up with their state’s tragic mismanagement of the budget. In July, their state representatives voted to overturn Republican governor Bruce Rauner’s veto of the state budget and raise the personal income tax to 4.95 percent from 3.75; the lawmakers also voted to raise corporate income tax from 5.25 to 7 percent. These taxes will generate $5 billion in revenue but won’t pay the state’s $15 billion in unpaid bills since 2015. Tax hikes and budgetary mismanagement such as these have caused residents to move out of the state in droves. In fact, 2016 was the third consecutive year in which Illinois lost more residents than any other state. In 2014, the state lost 11,961 people, and in 2015, that number more than doubled, reaching 28,497. Last year? A total of 37,508 moved to other states.

From Chicago, too, there has been a great exodus. In March 2017, former residents told the Chicago Tribune that expense was the reason for their departure. In 2016, Cook County — Chicago’s home — lost 21,324 residents, more than any other county in the U.S. Sanctuary cities themselves are massively unpopular, with 80 percent of Americans agreeing with the statement, “Cities that arrest illegal immigrants for crimes should be required to turn them over to immigration authorities.” Forcing the people of Chicago to pay for their sanctuary-city status will only encourage more residents to move out of the city.

The other reason people cite for their departure from Chicago is the rising crime rate In 2016, the homicide rate in Chicago topped 27.7 per 100,000, the highest since the 1990s, far above the city’s 2014 low of 15 per 100,000. Prioritizing illegal-immigrant protection over stopping crime may be the nail in the coffin of Emanuel’s legacy.

It is worth reiterating that President Trump hasn’t made sanctuary-city status illegal. He’s made it a privilege. This isn’t the first time the federal government has withdrawn federal funding to spur action. Puerto Rico elected to break from the federal drinking age and enforces its own 18-year-old-or-over policy. This policy has cost Puerto Rico $11 million a year since the 1980s. In 2013, Puerto Rican politicians considered raising the drinking age to 21, HuffPost reported, after “1.5 percent of [Puerto Rico’s] population — about 54,000 people — abandoned the island due to its tanking economy.”

Chicago, like Puerto Rico, cannot afford to sacrifice federal money.

I asked Chicago’s Office of Budget and Management how the mayor and the city treasurer can afford sanctuary-city status, but their communications representative declined to answer my questions. When I asked how much of an impact $3.2 million would have on the city, the only response was the mayor’s statement, which screams “entitlement”:

The federal government should be working with cities to provide necessary resources to improve public safety, not concocting new schemes to reduce our crime fighting resources.

In the end, President Trump has forced Emanuel to choose between his city and his ideals. And for a mayor who has built his city’s budget on the backs of financially exhausted residents, that question only has one real answer. Will Emanuel do the right thing, and sacrifice his ideological principles to save Chicago? Or will his “noble” decision-making leave the city in ruin?

– Philip H. DeVoe is a Collegiate Network fellow with National Review.