Is Elgin a sanctuary city?

I once asked that question of the city manager, Femi Folaren, and he said without reservation, NO.

But if you were in the audience at the Hemmens on October 2nd, you might think differently. WBEZ radio did a community forum on immigration that night and some things were said that led me to believe Elgin is indeed a Sanctuary City. Listen to these quotes and decide for yourself.

When Mayor Schock was asked about the problem of illegal aliens in the community, he said: “I think everyone experiences a degree of frustration around the issue of immigration and the failure to have an orderly process by which people can enter our country, whether it’s to obtain citizenship or work; that’s absent."

“For years the federal government has turned a blind eye, pretending not to see, as millions of people have streamed across the border…Then after having had, and almost invited, millions of people to enter our country, to come up with draconian measures that’s going to punish those people once they are here is to attack the problem from the wrong end. I think everyone wants an orderly process. Every country wants to know who enters and leaves its borders. But the fact of the matter is the economy of the United States is dependent upon and grown as a result of the immigration. The unfortunate thing is that this has had to occur too often in an illegal environment rather than a legal, orderly process.”

According to Schock it’s as simple as that. The US just didn’t order enough foreign workers for our needs. So why are we concerned that 12 million of them came anyway? It was hard to believe the mayor actually said that. But Dave and I heard it with our own ears, and I have it on tape.

When asked about illegal aliens providing labor, he said:
“Of course there have been employee and employer abuses, but the key factor to remember is this; In the Chicago metropolitan area since 1970, 96% of the population growth in the entire six county Chicago metropolitan area has been as a result of Latino immigration. No immigration; no new workers. Our region would have lost jobs because of its inability to provide or find workers."

“So, when you combine the fact that almost all of the population growth for the last 35 years has been the result of immigration with the fact that over the next decade the University of Notre Dame estimates that two out of the seven million workers that we have in the Chicago metropolitan area will need to be replaced because of retirement, the baby boomers going through, where would we find an additional two million workers in a region whose entire population growth is traceable to immigration?”
(Just a footnote here. That Notre Dame estimate came at a Metropolitan Mayors Caucus meeting from Latino Studies Professor Sylvia Puente. Consider the source. Economics Professor Barry Chiswick has some different opinions about the value of Third World workers.)

“It wouldn’t happen. The Midwest, Illinois, Chicago area economy would collapse. We need additional workers. The pity is that the federal government didn’t establish a process, an orderly process, to allow workers and to bring needed workers to the United States rather than having it happen in the manner that it has.”

Schock repeatedly spoke of illegal aliens in terms of their economic benefit. I suppose there are economic benefits to dealing drugs too, but IT IS ILLEGAL! Surely he can’t be a proponent of situational ethics.

When the mayor talks about it, his logic is that we needed more workers, Washington didn’t plan for it, people came here illegally, we exploited their willingness to work below market rates, and that’s OK.

Doug Heaton