Be very careful how you frame things. Here’s another framing:

1. Migrants and their descendants are poorer than average.

2. Social spending is higher among poor people, because that’s the whole point.

3. Disproportionately poor people represent a disproportionate amount of social spending, duh.

Sure, but we're a far cry from most migrants being "job creators and entrepreneurs"

The reality is that a lot of them struggle to find jobs, and a lot of them end up working illegally for unscrupulous bosses. And yes there are a whole lot of reasons for that, but at the end of the day it's the reality we have to deal with

That's not a framing issue. The original claim was

> Generally immigrants are job creators and entrepreneurs, and take less from the system than native born people do

And this is (at least in the context of many European countries) not true.

It is not relevant if this is simply because they are poor, and poor people receive a disproportionate amount of social spending.

The observation is that immigration in that case drives up housing demand, while at the same time being a net-negative in financial terms for society.

When someone points out that a segment of the population is more disenfranchised than the rest, and then unnecessarily states that they represent a disproportionate share of social/welfare spending, it’s hard to ignore how the unnecessary statement, wittingly or not, pushes an agenda. Just like my framing did, though I totally did it on purpose.

That being said, I would be interested to know if the social spending stay disproportional after controlling for socio-economic factors. I personally have no idea, as far as I know immigrants could be either under- or over-funded. And if they are, it could be interesting to investigate why.

The same is not true in the US. It’s probably a cultural difference. Anyone can come to America and become American, but if you are not French it’s pretty damn hard to become French. Migrants can’t integrate as easily so they become an underemployed class.

"Integration" is mostly myth when it comes to people from different cultures. Does anybody ask the question if the immigrants to France actually want to integrate? Did immigrants to America want to integrate with the native people there?