Dem Rep. Casten on Chicago Migrants: Most Illegals Have Been Here a While, They’re ‘Contributing’

On Thursday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power,” Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) responded to a question on what will happen to the migrants in Chicago by stating that “the average undocumented person in this country has been here for twelve years, and, again, most of that is visa overstays, to tell these people who are contributing to America, who are paying taxes, who, in many cases, may be married or living with American citizens that we’re going to break up your family, you could not be more anti-family than that.”

Co-host Joe Mathieu asked, “[W]hen you go to Chicago.gov, your town, it says ‘the City has shouldered the responsibility of caring for more than 49,000’ immigrants, new arrivals, seeking asylum, many flown to Chicago from states like Texas. What will happen to them when Donald Trump takes office?”

Casten responded, “Well, it’s important to understand where these folks come from. There [was] a surge of immigrants when Greg Abbott was busing people up from Texas. But if you look nationally, and Chicago’s no different, the overwhelming majority of the undocumented folks in our country are not people who snuck across the border — no matter how many — how much we like to sort of fall for that lazy stereotype — they’re people who came here legally and overstayed a visa, maybe it’s a student who studied here, maybe they fell in love while they were studying here and had a child. There are people who had temporary work visas and then the temporary work visas weren’t renewed. In many cases, … maybe they are less so in Chicago, but certainly downstate Illinois, they’re farmworkers who we depend on to grow our food, but our programs have not provided support for these people. So, to tell those people, the average undocumented person in this country has been here for twelve years, and, again, most of that is visa overstays, to tell these people who are contributing to America, who are paying taxes, who, in many cases, may be married or living with American citizens that we’re going to break up your family, you could not be more anti-family than that. And it’s creating a lot of nervousness all across the country, not just in Chicago.”

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