'Like Savages,' Migrants 'Raping People': Illinois NAACP President

CHICAGO — The Illinois state conference president of NAACP, is facing calls for her resignation and accusations of hate speech in response to the release of a video in which she describes migrants arriving in Chicago as "savages" who have been "raping people" and "breaking into homes."

Teresa Haley, who has been president of the Springfield branch of the NAACP since 2009 and president of the state chapter since 2015, was recorded during on a video-teleconference with local NAACP leaders in October, according to Patrick Watson, the former president of the organization's DuPage County branch.

Haley discussed the recent influx of migrants arriving in Chicago, many on buses dispatched from Texas. According to a copy of the video Watson released, Haley said officials are going to great lengths to house migrants wherever they could in an effort to get them off the streets.

"And you have homeless folks who they didn't offer to put anywhere, or provide a meal to, but once you agree to take that federal funding, they're bringing them to you," Haley said in the video. "So Springfield, Peoria, Bloomington, Kankakee, the rest of us just get ready, if you declared yourself to be a safe haven or a safe place for immigrants to come, because they are shopping around and the busloads are coming."

Haley appears to have wildly overestimated the number of migrants in Chicago, claiming on the video that there were about 80,000 new immigrants on the South and West sides, with an average of more than 10,000 new arrivals a day. But the office of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said there had been only 25,000 new arrivals as of last week, and more than half of them were in shelters.

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"We're seeing families on the street, and we're like, 'oh my God, we're not used to seeing families on the streets.' But Black people have been on the street forever and ever and nobody cares because they say that we're drug addicts, we got mental health issues," said the state NAACP president.

Haley, who also runs her own consulting and training firm and works as a senior policy adviser at the Foundation for Drug Policy Solution, was recognized as "activist of the year" at the 2020 NAACP Image Awards. She is currently vying for a seat on the NAACP’s National Board, reportedly with the support of Illinois local branch presidents.

"But these immigrants have come over here, they've been raping people, they've been breaking into homes, they're like savages as well," Haley continued. "They don't speak the language and they look at us like we were crazy, because we were the only people in America who were brought over here against our wills, and were slaves, sold into slavery."

During her remarks, one of the attendees on the call can be heard to say "preach."

"I feel your pain,” Haley told an attendee. “I’m trying not to be a [N-word], but you know I’m pro-Black. So it's all about us, people.”

Haley denied making the comments when reached by phone while vacationing in Dubai, according to WLS-TV. After being told they were on video, she responded that "with AI, anything is possible."

The Illinois NAACP has yet to issue a formal statement in response to the recording of Haley's remarks. Patch requested comment from Haley's Springfield NAACP branch. Any response received will be added here.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Haley's comments were "reprehensible" and called for her to apologize.

"My family’s an immigrant family from a couple of generations ago," Pritzker told reporters in Chicago. "Virtually all of us came here from somewhere else. And so remarks like that are a commentary on our entire society [and] extraordinarily inappropriate."

Watson issued a statement declaring that he resigned in protest of Haley's comments.

"I will remain allying with the communities abhorrent to Ms. Haley, mistaken in her words that advocating powerfully and effectively for the descendants of the formerly enslaved means to denigrate others struggling to find their way," said Watson, who also accused Haley of transphobic rhetoric. "Those granted positions must not allow themselves to become agents of hate speech and divisiveness, she should resign and sit to answer for her words."

But Watson's successor as chair of the DuPage County branch, Michael Childress, told the Chicago Tribune that Haley had suspended Watson earlier this year and that he quit the position after NAACP branch leaders conducted a no-confidence vote. Childress also told the State Journal-Register that Watson was being removed as president and chose to release the video as a "smear campaign" against Haley, who he knew would be out of the country when the video was released.

The controversy over the state conference president's statements comes after documents reveal the city of Chicago spent nearly $1 million to build a migrant base camp in the Brighton Park neighborhood before the plan was scrapped due to environmental concerns. Meanwhile, recent reporting from Block Club Chicago found Johnson's administration's migrant shelter deals has offered lucrative opportunities to well-connected property owners. And on Thursday, the Chicago City Council voted 31-16 to stop a move to put a non-binding advisory question on the March 2024 ballot regarding whether the city should remain a "sanctuary city."