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Effort to block ballot question on Chicago's sanctuary city status prompts more heated debate

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CHICAGO (CBS) -- Allies of Mayor Brandon Johnson offered their own proposal on Tuesday to ask Chicago voters to weigh in on the city's migrant crisis, in an effort to block a bid to ask voters if Chicago should remain a sanctuary city, but their effort came to a halt after an angry crowd at City Hall brought an abrupt end to a Rules Committee meeting.

Ald. Michelle Harris (8th), who chairs the Rules Committee, ordered the council's sergeant-at-arms to clear the gallery of the City Council chambers on Tuesday when spectators repeatedly shouted over aldermen, protesting efforts to block a vote on an advisory referendum asking voters if Chicago should keep its sanctuary city status.

The meeting was called after Ald. Anthony Beale (9th) proposed an advisory referendum that would ask voters during the March primary if Chicago should keep its sanctuary city status, but allies of the mayor successfully blocked City Council from sending the measure to voters.

On Tuesday, critics of Beale's proposal offered an alternative which would instead ask voters, "Should the City of Chicago impose reasonable limits on the City's providing resources for migrant sheltering, such as funding caps and shelter occupancy time limits, if necessary to prevent a substantial negative impact on Chicago's current residents?"

Several people in the audience during the meeting repeatedly shouted over aldermen as they began to debate the issue, prompting Harris to have the gallery cleared. When shouts continued, and many in the gallery stayed in their seats, Harris recessed the meeting until Thursday.

Beale, who has tried several times in recent weeks to put the sanctuary city referendum question on the ballot, said the anger that led to shouting from the audience was the result of aldermen refusing to listen to Chicagoans who want to have a voice in Chicago's future as a sanctuary city.

"When you don't want the people to hear you — when you don't want the people to have a voice — you have chaos," Beale said. "That's why you're seeing the chaos in this city, because you're trying to silence the voice of certain people who just want to be heard."

Ald. Raymond Lopez (15th), who has backed Beale's proposed sanctuary city referendum, said the alternative question proposed by the mayor's allies is "a fake option."

"The real question voters want to be able to answer is shall Chicago remain a sanctuary city?" Lopez said ahead of the Rules Committee meeting. "The fact that so many people are afraid to allow the citizens to have their voice heard through a Democratic election is remarkable."

Critics of Beale's proposal, however, have noted that the city's sanctuary city ordinance contains multiple measures protecting undocumented immigrants, and does not either permit or control the city's ability to provide temporary housing or other services to the thousands of asylum seekers who have entered the country legally and are now staying at temporary shelters or at police stations in Chicago.

With the meeting recessed until Thursday, no vote was taken on either the sanctuary city referendum or the alternative offered by the mayor's allies.

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