A nearly year-old U.S. Senate GOP inquiry into Chicago’s housing of migrants at O’Hare and Midway airports may become more than a political annoyance for Mayor Brandon Johnson next year as Republicans take control of the federal government with an eye on tightening rules about public spending for noncitizens.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, the ranking Republican member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, months ago escalated an investigation Republicans on the committee had opened about Chicago’s policy of having migrants sleep at the airports while they waited for shelter beds.

In an August letter to the mayor obtained by the Tribune via a public records request, the senator said Johnson’s staff had been unresponsive to questions he sent in January about the practice, and raised the prospect that continued noncompliance could endanger federal airport grants Chicago receives for projects at O’Hare International and Midway airports. Cruz also suggested Congress could compel Chicago officials to respond should the Johnson administration not provide answers.

At the time, the letter didn’t get any notice and Cruz’s demands were little more than Washington intimidation tactics as Democrats controlled the Senate and national Republicans were using the immigration issue to rag on big cities across the country, with Chicago consistently being a prime target.

But with the GOP riding anti-immigration fervor that helped sweep Donald Trump back into the White House and Republicans gain control of the U.S. House and Senate, Cruz is set to chair the powerful committee beginning in January. While it remains to be seen how real Cruz’s threats are, one of the committee’s options is moving to withhold federal infrastructure dollars to cities that continue sheltering immigrants at airports.

Though the arrival of migrants to Chicago from the southern border — often being bused here by the order of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas — has significantly ebbed this year, the committee’s move would be one part of what’s expected to be a multipronged approach by Republicans to take their immigration efforts directly to “sanctuary cities” like Chicago that have policies in place protecting immigrant rights.

Tom Homan — the incoming border czar for Trump, who campaigned on a repeated promise of “mass deportations” of immigrants — said recently on Fox News that he will wield a “very, very powerful weapon” in potentially withholding federal funding for states and cities run by Democratic governors and mayors that fight deportation efforts. He also said he would jail the mayor of Denver, another sanctuary city, if the mayor blocks migrants from deportations.

Johnson’s press office did not respond to multiple inquiries about Cruz’s letter and the Senate committee probe, which a committee spokesperson said remains open. Among the other Republicans on the committee who co-signed a letter supporting the probe was Vice President-elect JD Vance from Ohio.

“Over the last few months, Committee staff has reached out to your staff on 4 separate occasions seeking a response. Unfortunately, your staff has refused to provide a substantive response,” Cruz wrote in the August letter. “Such lack of transparency with Congress and the American public is unacceptable. Your response will help determine if legislative changes to the Airport Improvement Program grants are necessary.”

The grants in question are federal funds that largely go to construction projects at airports. In 2024, O’Hare and Midway received about $112 million in Airport Improvement Program dollars.

In a statement to the Tribune, a representative for the Republican members of the Senate committee said, “Incoming Commerce Committee Chairman Cruz is continuing his investigation of Mayor Johnson’s decision to fund Chicago’s sanctuary airports and its impact on taxpayers.”

“With a Republican-led Congress, blue-state mayors who violate federal law or misuse taxpayer dollars to prioritize illegal aliens over Americans will be held accountable,” the statement said.

A commerce committee source said Johnson’s office has begun to respond to the committee’s questions, among them the cost and impact on airport capacity. The source said Republican members are considering prohibiting cities from sheltering immigrants without legal authorization to live in the U.S. at the airports as a condition of accepting federal infrastructure funds.

While Chicago’s migrant crisis has abated, about a dozen migrants so far this month stayed at O’Hare awaiting shelter placement, per city census numbers, though it was unclear how long their stays were.

Where Cruz and GOP commerce committee members hope to hit Johnson is by proving the past sheltering of migrants at the airports misused federal resources.

“Repurposing airport facilities and infrastructure to house illegal aliens not only degrades taxpayers’ investment in the national airport system but … violates the requirement that these federally funded facilities ‘be available for public use as an airport,’” Cruz wrote in the initial January letter to Johnson. “No rational person would define an airport as a facility that houses illegal aliens.”

The committee is seeking from the city the total number of migrants who have lived at O’Hare and Midway, where they were housed, costs and capacity reductions at the airport, whether the city consulted the Federal Aviation Administration or Transportation Security Administration and any incidents that prompted a law enforcement response.

Cruz also asked whether federal “Passenger Facility Charge” funds were used for Terminal 1 at O’Hare or the bus and shuttle center at the airport, all of which were used to house migrants. The facility charge is revenue the airports receive from a fee tacked onto most airline tickets.

Cruz also made a point of bringing up O’Hare’s $8.5 billion renovation project, which Johnson brokered a deal about with the major airlines in the spring.

“Your decision to house illegal aliens at O’Hare is even more curious considering Chicago has been in a contentious months-long dispute with tenants United Airlines and American Airlines regarding the future of a new terminal,” Cruz wrote in January.

Chicago’s migrant crisis began in August 2022 when Abbott sent a busload of asylum-seekers to the city and other northern municipalities. The Republican governor argued that southern border states were overwhelmed with the surge of migration that mostly stemmed from Venezuela and said so-called sanctuary cities like Chicago should walk the walk when it comes to welcoming immigrants. Abbott’s move was decried as a cruel political stunt by Illinois leaders who accused him of sowing chaos and using poverty-stricken asylum-seekers as political pawns.

While Chicago leadership has been unequivocal in protecting its sanctuary city status, that ordinance simply forbids local law enforcement from helping federal immigration authorities carry out deportations. It does not guarantee resources such as shelter and food.

The situation worsened after Johnson took office in May 2023 when Texas officials escalated the pace of migrants from Texas to Chicago. At the same time, the federal government didn’t come to Chicago’s rescue with sufficient aid or border policy reforms as hordes of families camped at police stations soared.

Although the scenes of makeshift tent cities on the sidewalks and lobbies of Chicago Police Department precincts captured national attention, hundreds of migrants also were housed at Terminal 1, where asylum-seekers who arrived to Chicago via plane waited for a coveted bed in the city’s overcrowded shelters. At a peak in October 2023, about 850 migrants were sleeping at O’Hare, according to the city’s daily census. Midway also temporarily housed migrants, though far less frequently as the migrant population never topped 30.

The crisis diminished earlier this spring following a executive order from President Joe Biden that cracked down on border crossings.

Johnson has responded to Trump’s victory in November by vowing to Chicago’s immigrant communities that the city will protect immigrants from deportation, saying Chicago’s sanctuary city status will remain in place.

The showdown between Cruz and Johnson isn’t the first time a Chicago mayor has gone up against Republicans in Washington over Chicago’s sanctuary city status. Then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel sued Trump’s Justice Department in 2017 after it withheld federal grants to Chicago because of the policy.

Emanuel prevailed, though that legal fight was largely symbolic because the amount of money at stake is a small fraction of the city’s police budget. It was $1.5 million that he wanted to use for ShotSpotter.

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