I am a first generation american - my father came here in the 1970’s from the state-owned coal mines and military imperialism of the United Kingdom in Ireland. In England he lived in a government housing project, worked in a government coal mine and joined the military to participate in peacekeeping in Northern Ireland during the bloodiest years in Northern Ireland’s modern history. Those were his options. The military took him to South America in the mid seventies where he served out his time.
He ran into some Texans in Belize who picked him up and drove him to Harrisburg, Oregon. There he met my mother and decided to marry her and was promptly deported - barely managing to get a visa. He started his life with her in a spare room working a temporary job in a local manufacturing facility. Now, though he still retains his British citizenship, he is Worldwide Director of Quality for a large manufacturing outfit based in central Los Angeles owned by an Iranian and staffed by pacific islanders and Mexicans.
My father is clearly not part of the problem - he has come over to work for himself and what he holds dear. He has done this in the likeness of the immigrants in the 19th to mid-20th century - gambling with all he has to make a better life for himself.
But some of today’s immigrant are different. They come to the United States with no intention of staying and rather than work for themselves, they quickly seek to gain access to America’s vast welfare net. They have children while in this country to get them taken care of by the state as well.
It is, of course, perfectly correct to place the blame for these actions on the immigrants that are doing this. At the same time, we have to ask ourselves a tough question - is there anything different about modern America that is contributing to this? Surely there are still hardworking immigrants; but why aren’t we getting more of them?
America has set itself up for the current immigration problem over the past eighty years. Indeed, immigration itself is not actually even the issue here. Yes, today’s immigration problems are actually the unintended consequences of domestic policy decisions originally intended to help Americans.
There was absolutely no attraction in 19th century America for the kind of immigrants that are now entering the country in droves. Immigrants faced thsi reality: work hard - or suffer. There was no safety net, no free health care, no free education, no free retirement and no legacy of amnesty for law-breakers. However today’s America represents an attractive entitlement prize for anyone who can just get here long enough to have a child or get bailed out by amnesty bills.
Thus, the immigration problem was not caused by lack of a fence, lack of border security or lack of some other kind of further government involvement - the immigration problem has been caused by government and it most definitely will not be solved by government. We are merely reaping what we have sewn. The answer then is not more intervention - but less.
We have to take a critical and honest look at the consequences of our welfare state expansion if we are going to fix this. We have to be willing to allow America to again be a land of opportunity (and risk) for any who would seek to come and gamble for a better life.
The reality is that the American dream is a dream of immigrants, like my father - and it takes immigrants to rejuvenate that dream in every generation. As it stands now, we are attracting people who dream of a handout and materialistic, lazy comfort. And the dream will die with this generation unless the cogs of American capitalism are allowed to once again be turned by citizens and immigrants working together - for themselves.
You need to make the case that immigrants are en mass tapping into the welfare system. Illegal immigrants are ineligible for just about every form of welfare, and legal immigrants now have waiting periods for most forms of welfare.
And alot of studies show that immigrants (including illegal ones) are a net plus for the government’s budget.
Immigrants, Welfare and Work
Immigration and Welfare
My point is not that they are using the system while illegal (in fact I never even discussed illegal immigrants). My point is that many immigrants are now comming here for welfare benefits, not freedom and opportunity. If they could use the system while illegal just as easily as with citizenship, then why wait for amnesty or try to have a kid for birthright citizenship? My point is that US citizenship is the prize for some immigrants now because citizenship means welfare benefits.
And my point was that your are grossly overstating the number of *come for the welfare* immigrants. It’s not logical to assume that they are coming for the welfare when it takes years before immigrants can get it, and they have to prove financial capability (on their part or a sponsors) before they can come. It is not as easy for illegals to use the welfare system, they are never eligible for most programs (only emergency medical in most states).
And several studies show that immigrants pay more in taxes than they use in services - and that they are less likely to use welfare than the average American.
You’ve offered nothing but rhetoric and assumption to show that immigrants today are any different than they have ever been, or that they are “people who dream of a handout and materialistic, lazy comfort”.
Though I think you are on target, it will be difficult, given our culture of dependency upon government handouts, to work the changes you desire. However, I think you’ve gotten much more to the heart of the matter than I did.
Jasen, I have offered no numbers. It is logical to note that “some” are indeed coming for the welfare. In relative terms, more are coming for the welfare now than they did 100 years ago - 100 years ago there was no welfare.
If I live in a developing country where I barely live off a fairly pitiful sustenance - I get terrible health care, terrible education and terrible pay. It is totally rational for me, especially if there is only one border to cross, to go to a country, stick it out there for a few years until I can have kids or get amnesty and then get some great welfare. And if I go there for that, then I am not as productive by relative comparison, regardless of the taxes (etc…) that I pay.
All the points you are making are correct, but they don’t address or contradict the point that I am making: any immigrants that come over for our social benefits do so, not because we don’t have fences and border protection, but because we will give them welfare when they become citizens. It’s not as complicated or as intricate an argument as your crediting me for.
“I have offered no numbers. It is logical to note that “some” are indeed coming for the welfare. In relative terms, more are coming for the welfare now than they did 100 years ago - 100 years ago there was no welfare.”
If you’re not going to offer numbers, then I feel justified in making some speculations of my own. I suspect that people who are motivated enough to emigrate are less likely to settle for welfare than native-born citizens. Immigrants are a self-selecting pool of people motivated enough to move to a new country in pursuit of a better life.
There is no such self-selection among natural-born American citizens. It’s only reasonable to expect that a certain percentage of natural-born Americans will be lazy and mooch off welfare. A certain percentage of foreigners are also lazy, but the lazy ones don’t tend to emigrate, so the immigrants in America are more motivated than average. If anything, we should rejoice that we’re getting the most motivated people.
Now, I agree that any nation that offers welfare will suffer from the problem of moochers who milk the system. That’s orthogonal to the issue of immigration, though.
Hearing this argument again boggles my mind. ‘America has to put up with people of different colour/language because we have made this country too perfect a place in which to live. Let us re-introduce widespread poverty so that nobody will want to live here.’
Insane.
It is interesting that the laws that have been past in the last decade to reduce the problem of immigrants coming to the USA and ending up relying heavily on the welfare system, have only shifted the use of welfare and created ways for people to skirt the system. Therefore, there is a case, that access to the american welfare state is one of the reasons that immigrants choose to come to the USA.
Furthermore, the article also points out “many immigrant families get welfare through the eligibility of their U.S. citizen children. (It is also important to realize that even when immigrants are ineligible for federal welfare programs, the burden of their support is simply shifted over to the state and local welfare agencies.” This is evident in the services that school district are mandated to provide etc.
I also would like to address the point that Jew made “It’s only reasonable to expect that a certain percentage of natural-born Americans will be lazy and mooch off welfare. ” This in no way refutes the main point of the article, which is that immigration is not the problem, but rather the welfare state.
Gurr8 you said that Colin was arguing “America has to put up with people of different colour/language because we have made this country too perfect a place in which to live. Let us re-introduce widespread poverty so that nobody will want to live here.” However, I would like to point out that welfare does not end poverty.
Sadie, exactly. Welfare only serves to increase poverty… that is why welfare is a “feel good” idea rather than a “do good” idea. Like I mentioned before, for a non-religious look at what welfare has wrought in Britain, read Theodore Dalrymple’s book, Life at the Bottom: The Worldview that Makes the Underclass. In it, he argues against the notion that poverty creates crime and against the idea that welfare solves poverty (economic or cultural).
“This in no way refutes the main point of the article, which is that immigration is not the problem, but rather the welfare state.”
Right, which makes me wonder why we have to inject immigration into the mix in order to talk about welfare. Colin’s article comes across as anti-immigrant. Basically it’s saying that America’s welfare policy attracts lower-class, useless people. One can say that it isn’t the fault of the immigrants but rather is the fault of American policy, but it still implies that today’s immigrants are undesirable. Unless we can see some economic numbers to back that up, it’s nothing but anti-immigrant prejudice.
Sadie, I’ll read the article you linked to.
Why not assume immigrants are coming here because they can get better jobs?
Colin you say that “some of today’s immigrant are different,” which is fine.
Are “some” enough for this to be true: “it takes immigrants to rejuvenate that dream in every generation. As it stands now, we are attracting people who dream of a handout and materialistic, lazy comfort. And the dream will die with this generation.”
It would seem to me that it takes a large number of come for the welfare types to kill the dream. Since they evidence that immigrants are coming here to get on welfare in any significant numbers is decidedly mixed, you statement seems unnecessarily alarmist.
“Unless we can see some economic numbers to back that up, it’s nothing but anti-immigrant prejudice”
That’s not true at all. First of all I reject the idea that economics boils down to numbers - in most cases it does not. This issue can be looked at praxeologically.
The reason I injected immigration into the debate about welfare in general is because there is a lot of anti-immigrant huff right now about perceived “lazy” immigrants coming over. I refute this argument in two ways:
- 1) citing an example of the kind of immigrants who come here looking for a better life
- 2) providing the paramount reason why there has been an increase (even if just one) of so called “lazy” immigrants
This demonstrates quite clearly that the issue has nothing to do with immigration as a separate policy but that people will flock to handouts if they are available. I merely focused on immigrants because of the current national obsession with with issue. You are correct, I could have just as easily wrote it about welfare in general. However, I have been an eye-witness to the specifics in the immigration caveat of the broader issue.
Jasen,
What I tried to imply, which I must have done somewhat poorly, is that immigrants bring fresh competition into the marketplace. If more and more come for welfare, which is a given as welfare policies increase, then (alongside the citizenry which is already dependent on welfare) there will be a collapse of the system. In fact, the point I made implies that the citizenry is already disposed to entitlements - that is why immigrants are so important to this - they represent the last hope for a country that now has borrowed more than they have spent. We are clearly a country made up of citizen-slaves already - if hardworking immigrants don’t come and save us, we’re toast. This should be clear by the last sentence in the piece.
Regardless of how many come, where they come from, and such other minutia - human action dictates that there will be more if they are offered more free stuff. It’s a pattern - not an equation. I think that what the numbers do show, is that there is less of a problem with immigrants taking entitlements than citizens. Again, this underscores the importance of our flawed policy. Unless citizenship becomes about hard-work and capitalistic principles, then our last hope - immigrants - will not be able to save us.
“The reason I injected immigration into the debate about welfare in general is because there is a lot of anti-immigrant huff right now about perceived “lazy” immigrants coming over. I refute this argument”
You don’t seem to be refuting it, you seem to be supporting it and then shifting the blame to American policy. Setting aside American policy for the moment, do you think there is a problem with lazy immigrants?
I think there are “lazy immigrants” - defined as people immigrating primarily for the social/economic entitlements associated with citizenship. I think there are more of these people today then there were 100 years ago. These people are coming because they are being enticed by said entitlements - most likely in proportion to the increase in entitlements. This is a problem. The immigrants themselves are merely the symptom of the problem but are not the problem in and of themselves. But yes, to be frank, there is a problem with “lazy immigrants” but that promlem is only as great, and probably less so, than the problem of “lazy citizens.” However, I saw no point to discussing the second point because I actually have real world experience with the contrasting immigrant types.