Fear freezes our spirits, causing them to retract deep inside us. When we are afraid, we shun one another. We look out for ourselves. Fear strips away empathy, compassion, and collective action and we are left with selfishness, greed, and individual needs. The wealthy elites have an interest in keeping us frozen because when we look out for ourselves, they benefit. They have their money and separately, we lack the power to challenge them. 

That is the playbook for the wealthy throughout the history of this country. And they are following the playbook again when it comes to the migrants coming to our border from South and Central America. It is in their interest to demonize the migrants. It is in their interest to starve the national budget and present us as perpetually out of money. It is in their interest to deny funding to services for the migrants and instead blame them for coming here when they are simply trying to find a better life for their families. 

And it was in their interest to start bussing migrants from the border to a variety of liberal cities throughout the country. In this way, they could spread the fear of migrants and the resulting strain on local services. And their plan worked. New York City mayor Eric Adams has said, “I don’t see an ending to this. This issue will destroy New York City.” Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson has said, “The $40 million that it’s costing the City of Chicago every single month to provide care for these individuals who are seeking asylum, that is not sustainable.” Chicago residents have protested the creation of migrant shelters in their neighborhoods. 

And the fear has come to our village of Oak Park as well. On October 31st, volunteers brought 200 migrants who were sleeping outside a Chicago police station to Oak Park to get them out of the cold. The village allocated $500,000 of leftover COVID relief money to housing the migrants at a local hotel and YMCA. But this week, the village manager sent a letter to the migrants staying here informing them that they would be required to leave their shelters by January 31st. 

In Oak Park, the fear of migrants is less about how 200 migrants are impacting safety or community quality and more about money. How could we afford to continue housing them? And I can’t claim that fear is entirely unfounded. But I disagree with the village’s decision to strip housing from the migrants in the middle of the winter, just 6 weeks from now. There is no reason to end the program with such short notice. The village has another $500,000 of COVID relief money left, which could provide housing for the migrants until the end of April. Even extending housing for one more month, until the end of February, would give them a more reasonable timeframe in which to make plans. 

Employing fear is easy. It’s why people use this tactic to divide us so frequently. We need to watch for this tactic. We need to be alert. And we need to respond to it with warmth. Extending housing to the migrants in Oak Park for one more month is one way to provide that warmth, literally and figuratively. And when national elites try to get us to fear one another, we should respond not with fear, but with solidarity. We can be the people we aspire to be. We can melt the ice of fear with the fire of empathy and compassion.

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