Illinois City Councilman Tried To Use Immigrants as Props—and Got in Trouble When People Thought He Was Being Compassionate

In the latest right-wing attack on immigrants, a city councilman in Illinois tried to pull off an anti-immigrant stunt—but it backfired when people thought he was genuinely showing some compassion.

For years, Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have been sending immigrants out of their home states into more progressive parts of the country, including Martha’s Vineyard and Kamala Harris’ house. They’ve been doing so to try to reveal the supposed hypocrisy of progressives, whom they insist would ignore the migrant crisis if real people in need of shelter showed up on their doorsteps. The stunts have been roundly condemned on the left as cruel, inhumane attempts to use real people as political props.

Despite Abbott’s and DeSantis’ noxious motives, progressive communities have stepped up and provided aid and shelter to the immigrants, prompting Abbott to repeat the stunt again and again. According to The Independent, Abbott has sent 600 buses and 30,000 people to Chicago and surrounding areas since 2022.

In the Chicago suburb of Naperville, city councilman Josh McBroom recently tried to piggyback on Abbott’s stunts by asking town residents to host immigrants in their homes. During a January 16 council meeting, McBroom asked the rest of the council to put together a signup sheet that potential hosts could add their names to. “I’m hearing stories about little kids at train stations without coats on,” McBroom said at the meeting, adding that be believes Naperville is “a compassionate community.”

However, McBroom was shamed online by his right-wing constituents, some of whom believed that he was genuinely asking them to help people in need and reacted, predictably, in the way they (incorrectly) claimed the left would. McBroom has since tried to clarify that his suggestion was a stunt, blaming the press for mischaracterizing it as genuine. However, if you watch the video of the meeting (skip to the “new business” segment around the one hour mark), it’s hard to tell whether he’s serious or not—especially since it’s hard to understand why a councilman would take up valuable meeting time with empty snarking. Now, McBroom is left to deal with the fallout from what he seems to have thought would be a slam dunk against progressives.

Maybe, in order to avoid future mishaps like this one, Republicans could try governing instead of using their positions for racist stunts.

(featured image: Naperville City Council)