Fox Guest Rudely Denied Stay At Hotel That's Been Closed Over Two Years

He's pretty sure it's because of Venezuelan asylum-seekers.

On Friday, the gang over at "Fox & Friends" breathlessly reported that a man, who calls himself "Reporter William J. Kelly" like it's his full name, had a "dire warning" about an evil luxury hotel on Chicago's Magnificent Mile that wouldn't let him book a stay or even enter, simply because they had been closed since September of 2020. How rude!

When Kelly, who may actually be the most smug-sounding human being on Earth, tried to enter the Inn of Chicago, he was immediately approached by staff who informed him that he couldn't come in.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because it's private," the employee explained.

" No , this is a hotel! " Kelly responded, somehow unaware of the fact that people who own hotels can in fact close them if they so choose. He then continued arguing with the staff, who told him that the hotel was closed. Kelly complained that he saw people go in, and the staff explained that it was closed to him.

"Closed for me ? I don't understand!" he responded, trying his best to sound like a victim.

You can see the whole ridiculous exchange below, should you care to have your blood pressure raised.

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The workers at the hotel explained to Kelly that only "residents" were allowed to stay at the moment. To his horror, these "residents" were in fact refugees from Venezuela. Refugees who he, in his apparent confusion, believed were undocumented immigrants or "illegals" as that type likes to call them.

Since last year, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has been sending Venezuelan asylum seekers to Chicago and other sanctuary cities. As we are not jerks, the city has done its best to place the 8,000 that have come here so far in temporary housing until they are settled. However, for the past two weeks or so, the number has increased from about 10 migrants arriving a day to 75 to 100 and placement has been really difficult. One of the places the refugees have been staying is the Inn of Chicago.

While the Inn of Chicago does plan on reopening in July, it has in fact been closed for the past two years, as is apparent on its Facebook page, where Fox News fans have been going absolutely hysterical over the idea of refugees being able to stay there when "American citizens" cannot.

Of course, neither they nor Kelly would be able to stay there anyway, whether the refugees were staying there or not, because of how, again, the hotel has not been open since 2020.

Kelly told co-host Ashley Strohmier that this whole situation was "disturbing," somehow relating it to crime in the area, as if refugees are more prone to crime than regular American citizens are. This is, of course, not factually true — immigrants have a lower crime rate than do American citizens.

"This is right off of Michigan Avenue," Kelly said. "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, you know 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."

I live in Chicago. My gym is actually on the Mag Mile, so while I am not there as often as I probably should be, I'm there a decent amount and have never seen a problem. This is not to say that there hasn't been an uptick in crime there over the past couple years. There has been. But it doesn't have anything at all to do with refugees being here. Everywhere in America experienced an uptick in violence related to the pandemic — and the more empty a street is, the less people have to fear they will be caught committing a crime. Just for the record, there are 19 other cities in this country with higher crime rates than Chicago has, many of which are in Republican-run states.

We also know about the Venezuelan refugees. It's been in the news for some time now, particularly over the past two weeks. Reporter William J. Kelly did not just happen to randomly wander into this particular hotel off the street, it's been mentioned in news articles that there are refugees staying there.

Since the segment aired on Friday, the story has been picked up by a variety of right-wing news outlets, and angry viewers have taken to the Google reviews, leaving bad ratings and either complaining about this incident or trying to pretend they stayed at the hotel recently and were dissatisfied. If true, however, it's not surprising. After all, the hotel has been closed since 2020, which one would assume means that there would be no one there to leave chocolates on their pillows.

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