A Democrat in the liberal city of Chicago is leading the effort to deport criminals as the sanctuary city faces growing troubles caring for thousands of illegal immigrants arriving from the southern border.

"This is a moment to restore some sanity and common sense," said Alderman Raymond Lopez (D-15th Ward) during a recent phone call with the Washington Examiner. "The Left, the progressives, the socialists act as though everything is just an academic exercise in good government. They don't realize or appreciate the real-world implications of what they do. Well, the real world has come home to the city of Chicago and the border crisis is in our backyard."

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Lopez, a lifelong Chicagoan, is not the only Democrat who is fed up with the city's response to 15,000 homeless immigrants who have been dropped into the city over the past year following the federal government's release of 2 million people from the border.

Lopez is leading a Democratic revolt to bring ICE, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, back to Chicago, in hopes it will send a message that egregious crimes committed by new and old arrivals will not be tolerated. It's a rare fight that will pit Democrats against Democrats.

"There are certain things that we absolutely do not find acceptable, and that is the purpose of the amendment," Lopez said. "When you have individuals who are coming here ... only for evil purposes, to be perfectly honest, we shouldn't protect them. We shouldn't harbor them. We shouldn't be a refuge or sanctuary for them."

At the city council's upcoming meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 13, Lopez will debut an ordinance that would allow city police to turn over to federal immigration authorities a much broader range of illegal immigrants, rather than releasing them back into the community.

At present, Chicago policy does not allow local police to turn someone in custody over to ICE even if the individual has an outstanding criminal warrant, a felony conviction, or is identified as a known gang member.

Lopez's ordinance would allow the city's officers to turn over illegal immigrants to ICE if the person in custody has been arrested or convicted of gang-related crimes, drug-related crimes, prostitution-related crimes, or crimes involving minors.

“Reopening communication to address criminal behavior will improve the safety of all residents regardless of how they got here or how long they’ve called Chicago home," cosponsor Democratic Alderwoman Silvana Tabares said in a statement.

The ordinance has 20 cosponsors so far, nearly half of the council's 50 members. Nineteen of the cosponsors are Democrats. The council's sole Republican member is also a cosponsor.

Only a majority, 26 votes, are needed to pass it. Progressive Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson could veto it, but the council could overturn a veto with two-thirds support.

The city's challenges began in August 2022 when the first bus of immigrants from the border arrived in the Windy City from Texas, the result of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's busing immigrants out of overwhelmed border communities, airports, and bus stations. To date, Abbott has bused roughly 40,000 people nationwide — 2% of the 2 million people released from the border.

In June, Lopez's Gage Park community offered to temporarily open its 100-year-old historic fieldhouse facility. It was meant to empty out the 2,500 immigrants living on the floors of police stations citywide, he said.

“We’ve got more migrants in police stations than officers with more coming, and the city has handcuffed itself when it comes to combating crime,” Tabares said.

Several hundred people sleep at the fieldhouse, but lately, more people are being dropped off and the temporary nature of the shelter is shifting into longer-term use.

The entire city is struggling though. Johnson announced Friday that his administration would provide tents to 1,600 immigrants to live outside — another temporary solution that would face a very cold Chicago winter.

At the massive O'Hare International Airport outside the city, one area has been transformed into a shelter for immigrants, but the conditions inside have prompted growing outside concerns.

Chicago joins New York City and Washington, D.C., as liberal cities grappling with the border crisis. Even New England areas, including Massachusetts and Maine, have described being overrun and unable to feed, house, and care for people — all on the taxpayer's dime. New York City alone has had 100,000 people come through its immigrant intake center since 2021.

“Every week I receive calls asking us to do something about their behavior: The drinking, loitering, drug use, outdoor sex acts,” Lopez said in a written statement shared with the Washington Examiner provided after the interview. “Unfortunately, as the law is written now, all we can do is issue an [administration notice of violation or citation] or hold them in the police district.”

Alderman Anthony Napolitano, the only Republican alderman in Chicago, agreed with Lopez's assessment and said he had seen a "very concerning increase in crime throughout all our neighborhoods."

"It is imperative that we reinstate the lines of communication between our city and the federal government to protect Chicago residents," Napolitano said in a statement.

The Johnson administration acknowledges all these problems exist, according to Lopez, but "they are dumbstruck at coming up with ideas to tamper down that activity, let alone hold the migrants accountable for their actions while they are here as uninvited guests to our city," he said.

The city has spent $110 million responding to the crisis over the past year, but not everyone supports Lopez's proposal.

"We're seeing a lot of our progressive partners trying to gaslight my colleagues as to why we should not do this," Lopez said. "Their argument with this ordinance really puts them behind the eight ball because ... you're embracing both drug dealers, gangbangers, prostitutes, and pedophiles."

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"We can be welcoming with restrictions, by setting parameters in place," Lopez said. "You have to have a standard that you're telling people is our societal norm otherwise, it's just anything goes."

Johnson's office, the White House, and immigrant advocacy groups the National Immigrant Justice Center and Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights did not respond to requests for comment.