I know what to tell people wishing to emigrate to the United States to get them to reconsider. Tell them that coming here isn't all that difficult, that The United States provides excellent resources to those that are allowed in, even to illegals that ultimately disappear into the population, never to be found again. The United States provides excellent benefits. That's not the problem.
The problem is that once you are here and become a citizen or achieve some form of citizenship status and begin working, you are no longer eligible for most of those wonderful services unless you are a member of a protected class. Once you are here, you become essentially a second-class citizen, and the country no longer bends over backwards to provide support to those in need, only to the new arrivals, unless again you are part of a "protected class" as defined by the law, which lets states and The Federal Government begin dishing out tax payers dollars.
Do you see where I am going with this?
The wonderful social safety network is the primary reason many come here. Those social systems are non-present in most of the countries that immigrants arrive from, almost all of them in fact. You rarely here of new arrivals coming from wealthy western industrial nations that have such well-established social safety networks. Arrivals almost always arrive from the third world or our southern neighbors where such government programs do not exist. It is in fact today one of the primary reasons most come here, our social safety net, which begins dishing out funds to those it defines as "needy," never mind the needs of our own citizens.
Once you are here, most of the services provided that make coming to The United States for so many so attractive, those services begin to evaporate rather quickly, due to the law and the structure of that social safety net.
Once you are here though, once you begin providing income, the country begins feeding upon you. Once you are here the country begins taxing you rather thoroughly and those benefits that you begin to pay for, which when you examine how much comes out of your check indicate that they are rather costly, those costly benefits begin to become rapidly out of reach. The country often puts the needs of new arrivals substantially above those of its historical citizenry. You progressively begin to pay more based on the "progressive" tax code while simultaneously you begin to receive less in return from the government.
For those of us that have been here already, for generations perhaps, generations that arrived when the social safety net wasn't so "evolved," if you want to call it that (ahem), we have never benefited from any government assistance in the form government checks or cyclical payments. Not once. Ever. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
It is a substantial financial insult to those of us that are already here who have generationally received nothing or very little but have been paying for this rapidly burgeoning system of social welfare that appeals in a sense to the immigrant to come here, unwittingly perhaps of what is in store for them once here and beginning to get established and to produce income.
It is a sort of "misery loves company" form of immigration system and social safety net.
So, maybe we should just toss flyers into the countrysides of the countries where most of the immigrants are originating. Put up posters and make cheap one page web sites everywhere and explain what is in store for them.
Call it the "Just so you know," campaign perhaps.
Tell them that before they come here, there is something they need to know and tell them what it that is, what I have just described.
Maybe that will help reduce the crisis at the border. At the very least, it may provide some relief to those of us that are already here and that have been for quite some time.
Copyright © William Thien 2023
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