SEIU Healthcare Illinois President Greg Kelley made the following statement on the effort by two alderpeople to amend Chicago’s “welcoming city” ordinance to allow Chicago police to coordinate with federal immigration officials: 

Chicago is better than this. We are a city that welcomes new arrivals. And we are not a city that welcomes bigotry and hatred.  

Anyone who is tempted tomorrow to promote “cooperation” with those that seek to divide us, by where we come from, by the color of our skin, would do well to remember what day it is. To vote to make bigotry easier and more convenient while thousands of our brothers and sisters are under attack would be wrong on any day of any week. But to do so on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday is to proclaim an intention of being on the wrong side of history.

I am so proud to represent the tens of thousands of healthcare workers in Chicago who have organized through our union to promote unity and a community of care. In this community, we all come together to protect the most vulnerable amongst us. This is the society that MLK fought and marched for. This is the society that our members are building every day through their acts of frontline care on the job and in the streets.

We will remain unified in the face of hatred and fearmongering to protect all of our brothers and sisters. And we ask the alderpeople who are tempted to buckle in the face of bigotry through an action that not only exposes the city to legal action for violating 4th Amendment rights but will also make all of us less safe—to instead join our growing ranks in solidarity. 

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