“Ticking Time Bomb”: Chicago Reporter Is Barred From Entering A Luxury Migrant Hotel, Gives Dire Warning

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A Chicago reporter gave a somber warning on public safety after employees working at a luxury hotel that is housing migrants stopped him from entering during an exchange caught on camera.

William Kelly spoke with the workers at the Inn of Chicago and requested more information about the status of the hotel. The employees quickly said that it was closed and he was not welcome because he wasn’t a “resident” at the hotel.

Kelly retold his story on “Fox & Friends First”. He shared his broader concerns about how using the hotel as a migrant facility could impact Chicago’s already skyrocketing crime.

“It is very disturbing,” Kelly told co-host Ashley Strohmier Friday.

“This is right off of Michigan Avenue. We already have the retailers fleeing due to violent crime. Tourists obviously have flatlined in the city of Chicago. Hotels are struggling, and this luxury hotel is apparently being used to house migrants.”

“The city of Chicago isn’t talking about this at all, so Chicago residents are being kept completely in the dark,” he continued.

“We really have a ticking time bomb here, something… tragic could happen at the hotel. Something could spill out onto Michigan Avenue. We are entering Chicago’s notorious murder season, and we already have an out-of-control crime problem. The police are understaffed, and our new mayor doesn’t seem to have a plan.”

The reporter caught the exchange on camera after a worker told him that the location was “private.”

Kelly told the workers that the location was a hotel and that he saw other people go inside, but one employee said “You cannot come in,” and after further dialogue said, “It’s closed for you.”
“It’s a private area, so therefore it’s private,” one person said. “You’re not a resident here.”

Kelly said that the hotel is closed to the public. He said he spoke to some of the migrants and found that a large majority of people were from Venezuela.

He noted that under Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s leadership, the city housed the migrants for a very steep price tag, all at the expense of Chicago taxpayers.

“Mayor Lightfoot is saying that this is going to cost the taxpayers between 20 and $25 million a month,” Kelly said. “Where is this money going? There’s never really, to my knowledge, been any accounting. We don’t really even know how many migrants are at this hotel.”

“You can be sure that… if this hotel was just being run out for the public… there’d be… city inspectors crawling all over this place to shut it down,” he continued.

“But yet… as of right now, there’s nobody, no one who isn’t somehow running this very secretive operation, is even allowed inside the hotel.”

Kelly is very concerned about the lack of transparency surrounding the use of Chicago’s tax dollars.

“The real questions that I have are the people who are in a very secretive way trying to corral these migrants, and also how quickly they turn hostile,” Kelly said. “That was the other thing that kind of shocked me was their attitude that Chicagoans almost have no right to know. They have no right to ask any questions, and the second I even asked my very first question before I even attempted to enter the hotel, they called 911.”

Kelly is a longtime critic of Lightfoots. He accused her of revoking his press credentials to protect her now-failed re-election campaign.

Lightfoot’s successor, Brandon Johnson, will be sworn in open May 15.