Topline
Months after Republican governors began busing migrants from Texas to liberal cities like Chicago, the Chicago Police Department has launched an internal investigation into whether its officers had sexual relations with migrants being housed at a police station.
This file photo from 2010, in Chicago, shows the 18th District Chicago Police Station. (AP … [+]
Key Facts
The Chicago Police Department confirmed in an email to Forbes that an internal investigation is ongoing regarding whether any Chicago Police officers had sexual relations with migrants being housed at the department’s Ogden District police station.
The migrants, who are asylum seekers mostly from Venezuela, have been arriving in Chicago since August when Texas’ Republican Gov. Greg Abbott began busing them to liberal cities like Chicago, New York City and Washington, D.C.; Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, also both Republicans, have followed Abbott’s lead.
The department declined to answer more specific questions regarding how long the investigation has been ongoing, whether any officers have been suspended and stripped of power or how long the investigation is expected to last.
However the Chicago Tribune reported based on inside sources that a focus of the investigation is into whether any of the migrants involved were children.
Crucial Quote
“The City takes these allegations, as well as the care and well-being of all residents and new arrivals, very seriously,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnon’s office said in a statement to Forbes. “We are monitoring the situation closely, but cannot comment further as this is the subject of an ongoing investigation by the Bureau of Internal Affairs and the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.”
Key Background
More than 10,000 men, women and children have arrived in Chicago since August, city officials told NBC Chicago and other news organizations. Chicago has struggled to house these immigrants. Each of the police department’s 22 district stations as well as several other city-owned buildings have been used as temporary shelter for hundreds of migrants, according to local media including the Tribune. Some migrants have been found sleeping on the floors of O’Hare International Airport while they wait for beds elsewhere, according to the local news site Block Club Chicago. Nubia Willman, a city official working in community engagement under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot when the first migrants arrived, told WTTW that the situation constituted a “humanitarian crisis.”
Tangent
Abbott has said he’s sent 23,500 migrants from Texas to liberal cities across the U.S. in a political move meant to make a statement about the nation’s immigration policies and to keep Texas towns from having to deal with the burden of handling these migrants. In September, he said he even sent a busload of migrants to Vice President Kamala Harris’ personal home in Washington, D.C. A Ducey and DeSantis, have also sent migrants to liberal cities across the U.S. Chicago is not the only city that’s struggled to accommodate these new arrivals. In May, New York City’s Deputy Mayor for Health & Human Services Anne Williams-Isom said during a press conference that the city was at a “breaking point” in dealing with the migrants it’s received. ABC7 New York reports that the city has been using school gymnasiums to house migrants.
Further Reading
CPD investigating claims of officer or officers having sexual relations with migrants housed in West Side police station (Chicago Tribune)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/willskipworth/2023/07/07/chicago-police-department-under-internal-investigation-for-alleged-sexual-relations-with-bused-in-migrants/