Mayor Brandon Johnson on Wednesday stood behind his administration’s bumpy attempts to house migrants in large tent encampments before the winter, a week after Gov. J.B. Pritzker blew up plans for the first such camp amid blistering environmental concerns.

Addressing reporters after a City Council meeting, the mayor said his approach to vetting the land that would have housed Chicago’s first government-run migrant camp was appropriate, while admitting there’s room for improvement in the future.

“I’m very much committed to environmental justice,” said Johnson, adding Pritzker’s administration never made a “request” for the city to follow specific guidelines.

“We made remediation that was suited for this temporary site,” he said. “Now as far as moving forward, those conversations are going to be strengthened. I’m very much committed to making sure that there’s a clear understanding for everyone as we move forward to address this mission.”

Johnson added that the city is negotiating with the private owner of the Brighton Park lot, saying “we’re not moving forward with that” as a migrant camp. He did not answer questions on how much of the bill on the failed site will need to be footed by city taxpayers.

The mayor noted the pace of buses filled with migrants coming to Chicago will likely not slow. And he did not rule out future tent encampments despite recent signals that he’s cooling on the monthslong plan, saying “all of our options are still the same.”

Last week, the Pritzker and Johnson administrations traded their harshest barbs yet following the city’s environmental assessment on the former industrial land at 3710 S. California Ave. in Brighton Park. The rare public tiff came after months of brewing tension between the two over Johnson’s handling of the now 25,700-plus migrants who have come to Chicago since August 2022.

The Brighton Park site was to house up to 2,000 asylum-seekers and Johnson’s office ruled it was “safe for temporary residential use” upon conclusion of a city contractor’s environmental review.

But Pritzker’s administration pulled its funding for that site after analysis by the state Environmental Protection Agency showed “serious environmental concerns.”

“While the city might be comfortable placing asylum-seekers on a site where toxins are present without a full understanding of whether it is safe, the state is not,” Pritzker spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh said in a statement last week, after Johnson’s team blamed the state for not providing the right guidelines to the city.

The mayor’s plan to place asylum-seekers in heated winter tents was first revealed in September, but a series of false starts and fiery community pushback has dogged him the entire way. The 38th and California land was the first site scouted for such a camp, with construction kicking off and plans to open its doors to migrants as early as mid-December — if it weren’t for the state scrapping the operation at the eleventh hour, citing shoddy remediation and soil sampling.

The debacle was a high-profile mark on the progressive mayor’s stated values of environmental justice and his mission to prove Chicago’s welcoming city reputation with limited resources. Still, the Johnson administration has made swift progress with reducing the population sleeping outside Chicago police stations. There are now about 350 migrants at the police districts and 220 at O’Hare International Airport, down from a peak of about 3,800 combined earlier this fall.

How the administration tackles this temporary lull will prove fateful. Republican states seeking to prove liberal, pro-immigration cities wrong will likely keep sending the buses ahead of the summer Democratic National Convention that will be held in Chicago. Up to seven buses were expected Wednesday.

Earlier this week, the Johnson administration began distancing itself from future migrant camps. A Monday statement from the mayor’s office and Ald. Ronnie Mosley said “there are no immediate plans” to proceed with a long-proposed encampment in Mosley’s Far South Side’s 21st Ward.

An environmental assessment and preliminary groundwork on the former Jewel-Osco grocery store at 115th and Halsted streets will proceed, Johnson’s spokesman Ronnie Reese said.

Johnson’s Wednesday comments came the same day aldermen approved harsher penalties against bus companies from Texas and other border states sending migrants to Chicago. Following a November ordinance paving the way to crack down on what the mayor’s office has characterized as “rogue buses,” the new changes now give Chicago police the authority to impound buses that don’t follow the rules and fine owners up to $3,000.

The city announced it would crack down on buses in mid-November, laying out rules for when and where buses could drop off migrants.

But the Chicago Department of Transportation said companies are not following the requirements to register, and the Johnson administration this month quietly began filing dozens of lawsuits concerning 77 buses the city alleges violated the rules.

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