But at the same time the state somehow has money to house feed and medically care of millions of illegal immigrants
Do you honestly think the government is literally simply "housing" all the authorized immigrants? As in, literally writing checks to their landlords? And literally paying their grocery bills, each and every week? Do you actually think that's what's happening?
Remember, the rant wasn't referring simply to new arrivals, but literally to all the "millions" who have been here for decades. With the tacit approval of US society at large, for the simple reason that (authorized or not) the vast majority form an indispensible part of its workforce, doing the hard work that most Americans refuse to do.
I'm not saying the migrant crisis isn't a huge, costly mess. But for whatever is happening, I just don't get these weird, distorted and emotionally manipulative narratives.
Yes, you are. That's a large part of the problem.
In my neighborhood, they've moved these migrants into what are essentially concentration camps. (They've used the local military buildings to do it, and in many cases, yes, they're feeding and clothing them with state tax dollars.) We're happy some of these families are getting a chance at a better life. We're happy to see some of them working jobs at the local grocery market. We're not happy to see crime rise precipitously in the local areas near where they're housed. (B & E, stolen cars, kidnapping attempts of local girls...) We're not happy to be told that classrooms are now jammed full of students, many of whom can't speak English, guaranteeing worse outcomes for our children.
It's unlikely that the same people working at the market are the ones committing the crimes, but this population was brought here because of the administration's policies favoring open borders over the security, safety, and hard work of the citizens its supposed to protect.
You know I'm not, and don't see much point in this conversation style.
Your phrase was of the form "I'm not saying... But..." The "but" is a denial of what preceded it. The "weird" narratives are the reasons why it is a mess, the reasons why it is costly. When you deny those, and use your "of course, of course... but" it comes off as a denial of the problem.
I think you misread me there. It wasn't a denial at all.
It was simply saying: whatever the state of the mess -- weird, distorted narratives about the mess don't help us out of the mess. And in fact are a huge part of the mess.
Exactly as you put it.
This is one of those moments I wish people had a way (I guess you could just add it in the notes) to mark their HN account with a region. Are you in the UK, maybe?
The immigration issue sounds very different in the EU vs US, even if many of the sound bites rhyme.
In Europe (including the UK), we have seen an enormous surge in asylum seekers and they're housed, fed, etc, with tax money. I believe the latest annual figure is around £5bn, which is not insignificant.
I don't know what the solution is, as an immigrant to the UK myself I find it difficult to judge or comment, but you need to keep in mind that Europe has a welfare model quite different from your US. We typically pay more taxes and have a higher expectation of public services. When those services are deteriorating, people look for someone to blame.
Immigrants are an easy target.
In reality, it is much more to do with the aging population and fewer in the workforce, but that doesn't mean that we're also not paying a lot of money for asylum seekers.
We’re generally only talking about 50,000 people a year coming in via these routes
Of course Brexit didn’t help with the policing of it all either
That number sounds big, but for some perspective my city (Seattle) is spending more than that to build light rail tracks to one particular (not that very dense!) neighborhood. In
0.42% of the UK budget is spent on helping people who have had everything in their lives ripped away. People who have watched family members get shot, had their houses destroyed by bombs, and for some, their entire homeland turned into rubble.
The UK populace spent decades electing corrupt leaders who purposefully destroyed civic institutions. Of course things are falling apart. Immigrants don't have much to do with that...
This exact attitude is what gets the right wing growing.
> As in, literally writing checks to their landlords?
In some EU countries (where I'm from), yes. A student friend of mine was even rejected by landlord who wanted Syrians because the government would pay their rent.
But thank you for your valuable contribution to this conversation.
Are they there illegally? Or legally?
And are there, in fact, "millions" of illegal immigrants being housed and fed in the EU on public subsidy?
I know you said "illegal immigrants and refugees", so I misquoted you slghtly. But the bigger point is -- why conflate the two, when the numbers and overall situations are entirely different?
The solution is to listen to their worries and take action to fix them instead of ignoring them and calling them stupid
It isn't the concerns of the voters, but the relentless cognitive distortions we keep hearing about push-button topics such as this one (generally promoted by ideologues and pundits, rather than the voters themselves) that are, for want of a better term, stupid.
Not relevant to the political question. The point is there is anger at the number of migrants European politicians let in.
The immigrants by large are coming from the worst imaginable conditions and fighting their way into Fortress Europe. It is the failure of our societies to help the countries like Syria, Afghanistan, etc to be liveable. We are paying the price for this failure.
There were absolutely pro-migration politicians, e.g. Merkel.
> immigrants by large are coming from the worst imaginable conditions and fighting their way into Fortress Europe
Europe continues to have generous refugee obligations, protections and benefits. There also isn’t a robust deportation regime, in part because there isn’t anywhere to legally deport them to. That’s probably what these voters take offence to. (I unfortunately don’t see any non-radical solutions.)
Which in turn further drives and exploits the anger.
That’s a concern. The working poor’s concern is the labor competition from one side and welfare competition from the other.
Of course Russia and China aren’t innocent when it comes to Syria and large parts of Africa
Yet, the government gave 100% free treatment to 48k immigrants that had no information. Many of then pregnant women from Asian countries with complicated situations that coat lots of money. Some illegal immigrants even got right to have treatments with medicines that cost millions.
There is North of 700 000 illegal residents in France alone. So yes, millions in the UE. Here, they have free health care (CMU) costing more than a billion euros per year while the government wanted reduced refunds on medical acts and medicine for people paying for it. How do you justify things like illegal immigrants having a 75% off on their subway pass[1] in Paris (I just paid mine 86€ today for the month) while a French national on unemployment benefits like I am currently doesn't even have a 25% off? It's exactly why people as voting for the so-called "far"-right party, with are still quite leftist in comparison to the ruling parties of countries like Japan, Thailand, etc.
[1] https://www.iledefrance-mobilites.fr/titres-et-tarifs/detail...
So that was my concern -- what purpose is served by promoting a grossly exaggerated characterization of the actual cost of having these people around?
How do you justify things like illegal immigrants having a 75% off on their subway pass[1] in Paris (I just paid mine 86€ today for the month) while a French national on unemployment benefits like I am currently doesn't even have a 25% off?
If it were up to me, I'd stick it incrementally to you-know-who have you also getting a Solidarité reduction. But that's obviously not kind thing the voting public wants to hear these days.
In France, if you are illegal, you get free healthcare.
https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aide_m%C3%A9dicale_d%27%C3%8...
Actual estimates for the total number if illegal migrants (including children) in the UK top out at around 800,000. Yet the commenter above said that your government was paying to house and feed "millions" of them. Last we checked, "milions" means >= 2,000,000.
Do you still think that what the commenter is saying "actually tends to be the case" in the UK?
How about you look up how many refugees European nations are paying to house vs getting emotional and changing the goalposts. I suspect the number is not millions, but this does not include medical care or other humanitarian care.
The GBP/EURO/USD spent is in the billions and the cost was the premise, not necessarily the number of people. If OP exaggerated, correct it and move on to the substance of the argument. It doesn’t make their entire post insipid (your words)
It's fueled by the double standards of those in power who redistribute our tax euros/dollars their way, since it's easy for them to be generous with other peoples' money.
We're being told healthcare and education is lacking funding and doctor and kindergarten spots are scarce and need longer and longer waiting times due to state coffers being empty, but at the same time the state somehow has money to house feed and medically care of millions of illegal immigrants and refugees and their families, and giving billions in aid to Ukraine.
You're right that people wouldn't care you're giving billions away to foreigners and foreign causes if all of their domestic issues would be solved, but since that's not the case and since we're living in troubled economic times when resources are scarce, voters expect their rulers to take care of them first before acting generous with their money.
So obviously taxpayers are pissed with this arrangement they didn't vote for, and would rather see those state billions coming out of their taxes being spent on their own issues, not on the issues of foreigners.
You can only gaslight people so long before they lash out. The solution is to listen to their worries and take action to fix them instead of ignoring them and calling them stupid and fascist from an ivory tower.