—Barrington Williams, B1Daily

Chicago’s Office of Inspector General recently calculated that the city’s New Arrivals Mission consumed approximately $639.7 million in city and grant money between August 2022 and December 2024, providing services to more than 46,000 new arrivals. Roughly $269 million, or 42 percent, came from Chicago’s corporate fund, according to the inspector general.

That distinction matters because Johnson inherited the migrant crisis when he became mayor in May 2023. He did not create the entire $639.7 million bill.

But he certainly inherited responsibility for deciding what Chicago would do about it.

And this is where Johnson deserves scrutiny.

Hundreds of Millions While Chicagoans Asked: What About Us?

Johnson entered office representing a city already carrying enormous problems. Chicago had neighborhoods struggling with poverty and disinvestment, residents demanding better public safety, an enormous pension burden and communities asking City Hall for resources long before buses carrying asylum seekers began arriving from Texas.

Then Chicago suddenly demonstrated an astonishing ability to mobilize money.

The city opened shelters. Contractors were hired. Staffing operations expanded. Food was purchased. Buildings were secured. An entire government apparatus sprang into action.

The final price tag reached nearly $640 million.

That does not mean migrants received $640 million in cash. Much of the money went to contractors providing staffing, facilities, food and other services. The inspector general found that more than $622 million went to ten vendors.

The largest was Favorite Healthcare Staffing.

Chicago’s inspector general reports approximately $400.3 million went to that company during the New Arrivals Mission. Another roughly $128.9 million went to Equitable Social Solutions.

Those figures should make every Chicago taxpayer’s eyebrows hit the ceiling.

The inspector general found the spending was accurately reported and that the city generally followed its procurement and invoicing procedures. That is important. This is therefore not evidence that Johnson stole or illegally diverted hundreds of millions of dollars.

It is evidence of something politically different:

Chicago was willing and able to mobilize staggering resources when officials decided a crisis required them.

That naturally invites longtime residents to compare that urgency with what their neighborhoods have received.

Black Chicagoans Had Every Right to Be Angry

This became especially explosive in Chicago’s Black communities.

WTTW reported that migrant expenditures angered many Black Chicagoans who believed their communities had spent years asking City Hall to address longstanding disinvestment.

That anger should not automatically be dismissed as anti-immigrant.

Imagine living in a neighborhood where residents have complained about deteriorating infrastructure, inadequate economic development, violence, homelessness and neglected public spaces, only to watch government suddenly discover an emergency gear capable of moving hundreds of millions of dollars.

The question practically asks itself:

Where was this urgency for us?

Johnson himself recognized the political danger early. When proposing $150 million for migrant services in his 2024 budget, he insisted Chicago could welcome newcomers while still honoring obligations to existing residents, particularly communities suffering from longstanding disinvestment.

That promise should be the measuring stick against which his administration is judged.

The $150 Million Budget Gambit

Johnson’s handling of the numbers was hardly a masterclass in fiscal realism.

His first budget allocated $150 million for migrant services even though his administration knew that amount would not cover the anticipated costs for the entire year.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Johnson deliberately set the figure low as part of an attempt to pressure the federal government for additional assistance.

The strategy failed.

That is not merely an ideological disagreement. It is a legitimate management criticism.

A mayor’s budget is supposed to tell taxpayers what government realistically expects to spend. Using an intentionally inadequate appropriation as political leverage against Washington was a gamble with Chicago’s finances.

And Washington did not blink.

Chicago taxpayers were still standing at the table when the bill arrived.

Now Chicago Is Back in Budget Trouble

The irony has become even sharper in 2026.

Chicago’s current spending plan is approximately $16.6 billion, and Johnson announced in July that the city was already facing a shortfall of at least $130 million because expected revenues had failed to materialize. The city also faces a projected deficit of roughly $1.16 billion for 2027, although that figure remains subject to updated forecasts.

Again, migrant spending did not cause all of Chicago’s financial problems.

The city has much larger structural headaches, particularly pensions, debt, spending growth and weak revenue performance. Any argument pretending that eliminating migrant expenditures would magically repair Chicago’s finances would be numerically indefensible.

But $639.7 million is still $639.7 million.

Politicians cannot call hundreds of millions of dollars insignificant when defending one program and then turn around and tell taxpayers that comparatively smaller revenue shortfalls require difficult choices.

Brandon Johnson Owns His Decisions

Johnson can correctly point out that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott deliberately transported migrants to Democratic-led cities, that immigration enforcement is fundamentally a federal responsibility and that Chicago faced a genuine humanitarian emergency involving thousands of people who needed food and shelter.

Those are legitimate defenses.

They are not immunity from accountability.

Johnson ran for mayor of Chicago. His first responsibility is governing Chicago effectively for the people who already live there.

Compassion without fiscal discipline is not competent government. Neither is treating taxpayers as an inexhaustible ATM whenever another level of government fails to perform its responsibilities.

And there is something politically poisonous about telling struggling residents that government resources are painfully limited while simultaneously demonstrating that hundreds of millions can materialize when City Hall declares something an emergency.

The question Chicagoans should ask is not whether migrants deserved humane treatment.

It is whether Chicago taxpayers should have been forced to shoulder so much of the financial burden of a federal immigration crisis in the first place.

Johnson himself once argued that Washington needed to do more.

On that point, he was right.

But a mayor is judged not merely by the crises placed on his desk. He is judged by how he manages them.

Nearly $640 million later, Chicago residents are entitled to examine every dollar and ask whether their mayor fought hard enough to protect their city, their neighborhoods and their wallets before volunteering Chicago’s treasury to compensate for Washington’s failures.

Because City Hall cannot suddenly discover fiscal restraint only after the money has already left the building.

—Barrington Williams, B1Daily