When Vermilion County Board Member Phillip Jackson took to the podium at a recent board meeting, he opened with concerns he has heard from his constituents.
“I hear from people all over my neighborhood, friends, neighbors … about the things that they seen in the news about non-documented immigrants and non-citizens,” Jackson said. “They’ve seen about the 20,000 Haitians dumped on Springfield, Ohio. They’ve even seen about Chicago.”
He went on to pose a rhetorical question to his fellow board members.
“On your craziest day, did you ever think you would sleep all night in January in a tent on your lawn in Illinois?” he asked the room. “Probably not. Well, that’s what’s going to happen. People who have no better housing than that are going to be looking for a warm place.”
Jackson proposed that the board draft an ordinance that would, according to him, “get out ahead of initiatives made by Springfield (Illinois) or anywhere else.”
The suggested ordinance proposal Jackson provided called Illinois’ process of “housing and caring for asylum seekers, non-citizens, and undocumented immigrants” a “disorganized disaster from the start,” and placed the blame on Governor JD Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.
“We do not have the structure or resources to provide for them. They are not our responsibility; we do not want the limited resources of Vermilion County going to the long or short term provision of transportation, education, healthcare, job training, or housing of undocumented immigrants, non-citizens, or asylum seekers,” reads the proposal.
The proposed ordinance would fine those “facilitating the settlement” of asylum seekers, non-citizens, and undocumented immigrants $1,000 a day for every individual they bring into the county, and they would be fined a further $1,000 every day until the individuals are “removed.”
Jackson’s proposal would put the responsibility for assessing and collecting the fines on the Vermilion County Sheriff’s Department — 75 percent of which would go to the Vermilion County Treasurer, and the rest to the Vermilion County Sheriff’s Department to recuperate their losses.
“I will point out quite sincerely that if we do nothing, things are going to come to us and we will have very little recourse,” Jackson said.
Jackson said he wasn’t asking the board to take action, just to consider his proposal to “get out ahead” of the issue.