A Chicago pastor is slamming Chicago city officials over what he believes is the city’s prioritizing of incoming migrants over the city’s current impoverished Chicagoans. Pastor Corey Brooks, known as the “Rooftop Pastor” for living nearly a whole year in a tent atop a Chicago rooftop, called out the city’s handling of the current influx of migrants entering the city. “It’s been overwhelming. We already have an infrastructure that is overburdened and we already have a city that is already overtaxed. And now you’re adding individuals who, for the most part, are here illegally and now we’re having to carry that burden,” said Brooks, who founded Project H.O.O.D to serve those living in Chicago’s impoverished Southside neighborhood. “It’s very disheartening because, for organizations like ours – we’re already trying to do the work in an area that’s already difficult to do, and now you’re adding more people to the problem,” he said.

According to Fox News, Chicago has spent $300 million on the migrant crisis since 2022, on top of $150 million listed as migrant aid in the budget already. Nearly 40,000 migrants have arrived to the city since August 2022. Brooks criticized the city’s status as a “sanctuary city” as part of the problem and states the city is taking funds that could be used for its own citizens and spending it on migrants, some of which are in the country illegally. “I understand when people, from Chicago or other areas start to really question the fact that now we have these resources, and they’re going toward individuals who sometimes are not even legally here, and we never had an opportunity to get those resources ourselves,” said Brooks. He also doesn’t believe that the city will invest in its impoverished communities even if the migrant expenditures are rolled back. “They’re going to find other things to invest in, anything but this community,” he said.

Chicago isn’t the only city where its citizens are feeling overlooked in favor of migrants. Last Thanksgiving, low-income residents of New York City Housing Authority’s Queensbridge Houses lined up to receive free Thanksgiving turkeys. However, they had found out that the turkeys had already been handed out to the city’s migrant population. Over 8,000 migrants had moved into the area, straining the city’s resources. “We do we have to take the butt of everything. This community is already suffering,” said one resident, Georgia Butler. And there seems to be little end to the tension in sight, as Republicans and Democrats battle over issues like building former President Trump’s border wall, the Remain in Mexico policy, and placing wire fencing along the Texas-Mexico border.