Clash of Ideals: Unpacking the Crime and Immigration Divide in Chicago's Congressional Primary

A progressive and a moderate Democrat are sparring again in Chicago. This time, the fight is not for the Mayor of the City but for a seat in the United States House of Representatives. Chicagoans will either choose to maintain the status quo with a progressive in office who has a looser stance on crime and illegal immigration, or voters will opt for a tougher voice on these two issues. Progressive incumbent Rep. Jesús “Chuy” Garcia will face Alderman Raymond Lopez in the Democratic Primary on Mar. 17, 2024. This race is indicative of the greater moderate vs. progressive divide in Chicago politics and, at this point, is focused on two primary issues: crime and immigration.

The Issues

In the 2023 Mayoral election, voters considered crime to be the number one issue. Unfortunately for the City, crime rates have only increased since Mayor Brandon Johnson assumed office. In his first 90 days in office, 38 more people have been shot and killed, and motor vehicle theft has increased by 4,341 incidents compared to the same time period under Lori Lightfoot. Overall crime is also up 38 percent since Johnson assumed office, inducing a 153 percent increase in car theft year over year. 

Moderates like Paul Vallas, who lost to Johnson by 3 percent in the mayoral race, have criticized liberals for their soft-on-crime policies. On Oct. 18, 2023, Vallas tweeted, “[Mayor] Johnson's budget converts 400 police vacancies into civilian jobs at a time when police shortages result in over half high-priority 911 calls lacking an available officer & only a 4% arrest rate for violent crimes. That’s NOT ‘Better, Stronger, Safer.’” Mayor Johnson and other liberals believe the solution to high crime rates is addressing root causes like mental health and education in addition to expanding civilian positions. The Mayor's strategy is aimed at building greater trust between officers and the community, as opposed to moderates like Vallas, who favor a strict increase in the number of police officers. 

Chicago has also struggled to provide basic necessities for a large influx of migrants into the community in the last year. Since September 2022, both charities and governments of border states have relocated more than 29,000 migrants to Chicago, and the influx is only increasing. 

Critics are calling Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s decision to send thousands of migrants to Democrat-run cities a political stunt to bring greater attention to the crisis at the border. The migrant problem in large sanctuary cities like Chicago has spurred division within the Democratic party on matters of border security. Typically, Democrats have centered their immigration priorities around providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and limiting family separation and deportation instances at the southern border. 

However, moderate Democrats are increasingly aligning themselves with Republicans as border crossings rise near all-time highs. U.S. Senators Mark Warner, Joe Manchin, and Mark Kelly, among others, have called for more restrictive border policies given the overwhelming present situation. Immigration policy is expected to be a hotly contested debate in the divided Congress through the end of the year. The high levels of border crossing resulting in an overwhelming amount of migrants arriving in Chicago will certainly impact voters' minds when deciding who should represent them in Congress. 

The Candidates

With nearly half of Chicago voters saying crime was the most important issue in the most recent election and the City making national news for its migrant crisis, crime and immigration are both salient issues to Chigoans and the two candidates in the Illinois Fourth Congressional Districts’ differing backgrounds are key to understanding their differing approaches to these issues.

Rep. Chuy Garcia has been a progressive leader in Chicago politics for nearly four decades. He was first elected to the Chicago City Council in 1986 and has served in the Illinois Senate and the Cook County Board of Commissioners. After hitting the trifecta of city-wide, state-wide, and county-wide service, Garcia aimed to bring his experience to the U.S. Congress in 2018, where he cruised through both his primary and general election in the race for an open seat. Garcia, a Mexican immigrant, is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and was endorsed by Bernie Sanders early in his campaign. 

Twenty-two years Garcia’s junior, Alderman Raymond Lopez, a native of Chicago, was first elected to public office in 2015. During his time on the City Council, Lopez has been a critic of Chicago’s more progressive mayors, cursing out Lori Lightfoot on a conference call in 2020 after riots broke out throughout the City. Lopez is a self-proclaimed centrist and wants to be a voice for “common sense solutions” in Washington. 

Both candidates ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of Chicago in 2023. Garcia finished fourth in the Feb. 28 election behind Vallas, Johnson, and Lightfoot, while Lopez dropped out of the race in November 2022 and decided to run for reelection as alderman instead.

Crime

The candidates for the Illinois Fourth Congressional District believe in fundamentally different approaches to address crime. Rep. Garcia lent a greater window to his priorities through his unsuccessful mayoral campaign in 2023. When discussing crime, Garcia emphasized the need for police officers to build trust with their local communities. An independent October 2023 report on the Chicago Police Department’s behavior found that officers frequently overstep their authority in stops and searches, resulting in low citizen trust in the Department. Much of the distrust stems from blatant racism by the Chicago police: A Black Chicagoan is nine times more likely to be stopped and frisked than a White Chicagoan, even though officers were 28 percent more likely to find illegal weapons or drugs in their searches of white citizens. 

To address these problems, Rep. Garcia argued he would expand community outreach programs, especially in violent areas, both policies that closely align with fellow progressive and current Mayor Brandon Johnson. Rep. Garcia also emphasized filling police vacancies present under Mayor Lightfoot but not increasing the budget for police officers. As crime rates have risen in Chicago, Garcia adjusted his ultra-progressive policy positions, but his fundamental belief in community-style policing is still present in his tenure in Congress. In Washington, Chuy Garcia has been a staunch advocate of criminal justice reform and gun safety legislation in order to combat crime on a federal level. On his website, Rep. Garcia declares that “criminal justice reform is long overdue. We have seen punitive policies disproportionally send people of color and low-income individuals into the prison system.” He is also a co-sponsor of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021, a bill that would combat racial discrimination in the police system, among other reforms. 

In contrast, Ald. Lopez has been quick to criticize his fellow Democrats, like Garcia, for refusing to address the root causes of crime. In a Fox News interview, Lopez described the crime policy of liberals as "very racist" because white liberals tend to ignore the victims of the "most heinous crimes," which are often people of color. Ald. Lopez frequently appears on Fox News to criticize what he calls Chicago’s "radical liberal crime policies." A staunch contrast to Rep. Garcia, Ald. Lopez believes that tough-on-crime policies, like harsher punishment for parents of children committing carjackings, will be a deterrent. While Lopez has not yet had the opportunity to be a key player in policymaking, it is expected that he would take a more aggressive approach than Rep. Garcia to address crime in the U.S. Congress. In next year's Congressional race, Garcia’s constituents will take into account his battle-tested knowledge of their concerns, but will they want a new approach with Lopez?

Immigration

Chicago’s migrant crisis is sparking key tensions about immigration problems in the U.S., and Rep. Garcia and Ald. Lopez has different approaches to addressing the issue. Garcia has been pushing for comprehensive immigration reform in Congress and recently prioritized greater support for migrants in Chicago. He pressed the federal government for more financial support for migrants, expansion of work permits, and a pathway to citizenship. The migrants in Chicago and across other sanctuary cities have an opportunity to benefit the economy in the long term, but in the short term, as a result of their inability to work legally, housing has been hard to come by for these new residents of Chicago. Migrants are being housed in airports and police stations at unsustainable rates, especially as winter weather begins to arrive. 

In contrast, Ald. Lopez has criticized the Biden administration for allowing too many asylum seekers to remain in the country for an indefinite period of time and believes deportation should be an option. According to Ald. Lopez, deportation has the potential to alleviate both the crime and excessive migrant problem due to the deterrence the policy encourages against immigrants who engage in gangs, drugs, prostitution, or other crimes. Garcia appears to be more focused on the future benefit of the immigrants and the humanity of people experiencing hardship, while Lopez identifies the current situation as dangerous and harmful for the current residents. 

Both the Congressman and the Alderman introduced legislation to address what they believe is most problematic with regard to immigration. On Mar. 29, 2023, Rep. Garcia, along with two fellow progressive members of Congress, Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Greg Casar (D-TX), presented the New Way Forward Act: It aims to separate and reform both the immigration system and the criminal legal systems through rolling back poor immigration laws that lead to racial profiling and result in family separation policies at the border like deportation and incarceration. The Act addresses both immigration and crime by relaxing tough-on-crime policies that have notoriously targeted people of color. Garcia made clear to his constituents that he will fight for racial equity when it comes to criminal justice and immigration. Meanwhile, on Sept. 13, 2023, Ald. Lopez introduced an ordinance that would expand the City's police officers’ ability to report illegal immigrants who commit crimes to Immigration Control. 

The Election

The newly configured Fourth Congressional District of Illinois is drawn in the shape of a backward “C,” encompassing most of southwest and northwest Chicago proper. Nearly two-thirds of the residents of the district identify as Hispanic, while 25 percent identify as white, the only other race representing above 10 percent. The redrawn district is slightly more conservative than the one Garcia triumphed in in the last three elections, as the district Garcia won by 40 points in 2022 now has a D + 22 rating or a predicted 44-point advantage for Democrats by Cook Political Report. 

While there might be some momentum with Lopez, including the national malaise towards liberal immigration policy and shifting demographics, the odds are stacked against the Alderman. In 2022, 284 incumbents faced a primary challenger, with only 15 failing to win renomination. In other words, just five percent of challengers were successful in removing incumbents. Rep. Garcia is an established name in Chicago politics and is not enveloped in scandal or immense popularity. If Lopez is successful or even challenges Garcia to a competitive race, it may motivate other conservative-leaning Democrats to challenge liberals in primaries.

The image featured in this article is licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license. No changes were made to the original image, which was taken by CAIR-Chicago and can be found here.