Chicago’s progressive coalition is struggling with migration

In politics, the highest drama is often about nothing. So it is in the Windy City at least. For the past few weeks, Chicago’s city council has been tearing itself apart over a proposal to hold a referendum on whether or not to repeal the executive order from 1985 which declared the place a “sanctuary city” for illegal immigrants. Some 20,000 or so migrants bused from Texas over the past year have stretched the city’s finances and capacities. The fight shows the strain the migrant crisis is putting on the coalition that propelled the mayor, Brandon Johnson, a progressive teachers’-union organiser, to a narrow election victory in April. It also hints at a difficulty more broadly for Democrats: migration is not necessarily as popular with their voters as with the party elite.