A handful of Chicago City Council members want voters to weigh in during the March primary election on whether Chicago should stay a sanctuary city for undocumented immigrants. 

Work will not resume Tuesday, while the review of the 800-page report by Illinois Environmental Protection Agency officials continues, said Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for Gov. J.B. Pritzker. 

New restrictions on where members of the public can sit during meetings of the Chicago City Council are “inequitable and likely illegal,” David Greising, president of the Better Government Association, warned Mayor Brandon Johnson. 

Construction began earlier this week in Brighton Park on the massive tents that will house at least some of the more than 1,000 migrants living in police stations across the city and at O’Hare Airport.

“The imminent addition of significant new shelter space,” means the Amundsen Park field house is no longer needed as a migrant shelter, Mayor Brandon Johnson said.

A probe by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found that aldermanic prerogative has created a hyper-segregated city rife with racism and gentrification.

Mayor Brandon Johnson touted what he called the “Unity Initiative” as his city officials announced that crews will start building the frame of a winterized base camp to shelter as many as 2,000 people near 38th Street and California Avenue as soon as Wednesday.

While the shelters will be a part of the city’s shelter system, state funds will be used to build the facilities, operate the shelter and provide services, including conflict resolution. There are now nearly 12,800 migrants in city-run shelters, an all-time high.

In the run up to the March primary election, the spotlight for Chicago-area voters will focus on races for state’s attorney, circuit court clerk, a key seat in the Illinois House to represent the city’s Northwest Side and two Congressional contests.

Ald. Julia Ramirez (12th Ward) said Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office informed her late Friday that work would begin Monday on the base camp over her objections and after the discovery of “toxic metals” on the site.

“The most fundamental thing is you don’t allow someone’s hatred to infiltrate how you see people,” Rahm Emanuel said. “There is a fundamental goodness in people. I have seen it, I have been a product of it. Have I had antisemitism directed at me? Yes, but I’ve also had the American story.”

The new policy could mean more than 3,000 people will lose their beds in city shelters by early February, with the rest forced out by April.

With Congress unwilling to act, Illinois has no chance to step in because lives are at stake, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said.

The budget, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2024, includes no new taxes, fees or service cuts, making it much easier for alderpeople to back the plan touted by Mayor Brandon Johnson as a down payment on promises to invest in working-class Chicagoans.

The announcement represents Mayor Brandon Johnson’s first attempt to reduce the city resources available to the migrants currently in the city’s shelter system.

Dr. Olusimbo “Simbo” Ige will now be asked to deliver on Mayor Brandon Johnson’s vision of public health for Chicago — while coping with the continuing pandemic.