When Emma Lazarus wrote her famous line in 1883, “Give me your tired, your poor,/ Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” there was no Medicaid, food stamps, housing vouchers and government-run shelters. Those who came knew they were on their own. Now they arrive with their hands out.
A country can have open borders or a generous social safety net, but not both. President Joe Biden is the poster boy for that mistake, and cities across the U.S. are paying the price.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams has warned that the cost of sheltering, feeding and providing health care and other services to the deluge of migrants will “destroy” the city. Yet Adams returned empty-handed from a visit with Biden’s staff on Dec. 8 to seek federal help. For the second time, New Yorkers are being told by a U.S. president, in so many words, to “drop dead.”
Biden is also turning his back on Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles and other cities beleaguered by the busloads of destitute migrants from the southern border. Chicago Alderman Raymond Lopez says the black community there is “no longer feeling the love from Uncle Joe,” as Biden leaves the city to struggle alone with the cost of feeding and sheltering migrants.
Windy City Democrats, outraged by the burden thrust on them, are vowing to disrupt the Democratic National Convention next summer and make their voices heard.
Americans everywhere feel the same. Charity is supposed to begin at home. Chicagoans want to take care of their own first, including the 68,000 locals who are homeless.
Immigration is spiking to all-time highs, exceeding even the wave of newcomers from Europe in the late 19th century, when Lazarus wrote her poem.
About half the spike is due to Biden’s open-border policies. A record 12,000 broke through the southern border last Tuesday, the biggest one-day surge ever.
Immigration per se is not the problem. The U.S. economy needs more workers. With the birthrate declining and baby boomers retiring, the U.S. has a people-shortage problem that can only be solved by immigration.
But Biden is welcoming destitute migrants, instead of newcomers who are educated, have job skills to succeed in today’s economy, speak English and arrive ready to provide for their families.
Biden’s open border means anyone who wades across the Rio Grande gets in.
Biden’s legal immigration policy — introduced into the Senate in 2021 — also prioritizes everything but economic self-sufficiency.
Biden’s predecessor, former President Donald Trump, ramped up enforcement of the longstanding “public charge” rule that bars anyone from getting a green card and permanent residence who is likely to depend on Medicaid, food stamps or housing vouchers. Biden reversed this policy.
Countries with smart immigration policies — Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom — have point systems giving preference to educated immigrants with language and job skills.
In contrast, two-thirds of legal immigrants to the U.S. get a green card based solely on having a family member here, whether they can support themselves or not.
It’s no wonder that a staggering 55% of households headed by an immigrant who has not yet attained citizenship use at least one welfare program, according to Census Bureau data.
Biden’s proposed immigration “reform” actually loosens the standards for family-based migration even more, never mind the impact on taxpayers and city social services.
And here’s the wackiest legal immigration program: the diversity lottery. Fifty thousand immigrants from “underrepresented nations” are literally admitted randomly every year. Biden wants to expand that. Canada is recruiting Ph.Ds. Biden is prioritizing diversity.
Sens. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) and John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) introduced a bill Nov. 24 to establish a point system or “skills-based approach” here. Americans tired of supporting the strangers coming to their shores, when their own neighbors need help, should support this bill. That includes New York Democrats such as Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — a New Yorker — charges that Republican reform plans, including deterring illegal migration, are “anchored in xenophobia.” Wrong. They’re anchored in survival.
Unless the U.S. acts to shut down illegal migration and reform legal immigration to favor self-sufficiency, New York and other cities face even tougher days ahead.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey.
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I wish at least a few of these authors would have the guts to speak the simple truth just once, instead of just dancing around this issue in the same circle over and over again. All these articles on this subject always end up with the exact same short-sighted conclusion, while missing the bigger objective that they dare not write about.
The Biden administration and the Democrat Party, as a whole, are accomplishing exactly what they have long desired to accomplish with little to no real resistance from the American people. The process was started in 1965 with the Democrats ushering in a wholesale revision of U.S. immigration laws to eventually lead to the exact same conditions we are seeing today across the United States. The mass illegal importation, via what is now wide-open borders in both the south and north, of the least skilled, least educated and least motivated to be anything but a permanent financial and societal drain on castoffs from virtually all around the world. All to provide the increasingly open Marxist Democrat Party with an overwhelming majority when it comes to elections to ensure permanent political and financial power for themselves. The Democrats create the initial problem, ramp it up as far as they can, then claim they can solve it all with just a lot more money from taxpayers, additional power to act unilaterally and of course the numerous societal changing policies that only serve to make conditions much, much worse over time. It’s the same playbook I’ve seen play out around the world for decades in socialist and Marxist countries.
The exact same end goal of all socialist and Marxist regimes, when you strip away the BS rhetoric that they feed to the ignorant voters foolish enough to give them their initial foothold of power from which to expand their power and reach. This only ends one of two ways at this point and so far, the vast majority of the American people seem content enough to just sit by and watch their country continue to slip away. We do indeed live in interesting times.
Would someone pease explain to me why we give anything to a person who voluntarily and illegally immigrates to our country. What other country can I go to and receive free housing, food, phone, transportation while the citizens of the country cannot? Why do Biden and the democrats hate USA so much?
The original purpose of our immigration laws was to get people who were willing to care for themselves, aid in the prosperity of themselves and the country and be a law abiding citizen!!! That’s not what’s happening!!! .We have plenty of our own citizens who are takers and want someone to pay their way in life but to let millions of illegals into our country who have absolutely no intention of doing anything but take and take and take!!! Joe, that is NOT what we need!!!
Why are we calling this “immigration” ? It is clearly an invasion!
I’m tempted to go to an American border town close to where the river is really shallow and then “play wetback”. I could then have a new identity established and garner all the benefits the federal government now awards those that break immigration law, free food, free housing which would allow me using my other ID to rent my old house, free cellphone with the unlimited data plan the government so generously provides them/us. Lastly I could use the actual monetary allowance provided by the government to supplement my meager Social Security payment (awesome how the govt decided inflation only went up about 3.3%…….sue seemed more than that to me). With all this I could get a glimpse of a better life by simply breaking the law. Ain’t America great?
I will call myself “Julio Domingo Martinez Guerra” and with my new identity may figure out a way to……..perhaps get some immigrant friendly doctor to declare me “disabled”. I could then perhaps qualify for Medicaide as well as SSDI payments to top off all the other niceties provided. I could live pretty well.
Since the government is rewarding breaking the law I can hardly see any downside to my plan other than perhaps on a moral level but in a country like America, what the hell does that even mean anymore?
A man with a plan……..well, two men with a plan……hey, what if I also told “el migre”, that I was LGDBQTD as well? Move over Elon!!
Today immigration is a mess, PERIOD! Like the article below said, unchecked immigration is exactly what allot of Americans wanted at the time, but why did they is the question. In general, the American people now are grossly uninformed about how the federal and state governments are run and how their tax money is really spent, and I blame this mostly on the lame stream liberal press!
Betsy’s article wrote, “When Emma Lazarus wrote her famous line in 1883, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” there was no Medicaid, food stamps, housing vouchers and government-run shelters. Those who came knew they were on their own. Now they arrive with their hands out.”
I agree with this except for one thing, in 1883 the press at that time reported the news mostly correctly, with no revisionism, today that is far from the truth. Until the press is reformed to correctly report the news and give the American people the truth nothing will change, and Americans will keep voting the wrong or the correct way. If the media still gets its way and continues to B.S., the American voter, this country will be no more!
Excellent article. Dictator Beijing biden’s Illegal Alien Terrorist Invasion has let millions upon millions of Terrorist into the United States for the past 3 years straight and not a single one can take care of themselves because Dictator Beijing biden is giving them everything free at taxpayers expense with signs on how to cross the Border and get a free taxpayer paid cellphone and flown all over the United States without any I.D. or Passport including they are being registered to vote illegally (Election Fraud and Election Interference). Remember that Veterans were kicked out of their homes so Illegal Alien Terrorist have a place to live. Thanks to Dictator Beijing biden and Communist harris it’s costing American taxpayers $132 Billion a year supporting people that are here Illegally while we and our children do without. That amount alone would take care of some of the Infrastructure for the United States.
Think about it. Dictator Beijing biden has WASTED $400 Billion in 3 years for his Illegal Alien Terrorist Invasion of the uneducated and criminals including untold Terrorist Cells.
Each year for the past 3 years 96% have been military age males while only 4% are females that have crossed over the Border Illegally. That is a FACT.
Over 99% of them can’t speak English let alone have any kind of education or skill except being Terrorist who are INVADING the United States daily.
FAKE news will never tell you the TRUTH on this.
Yet, what does Dictator Beijing biden and Communist harris concentrate on? More of their Unconstitutional gun control schemes instead of SECURING THE BORDERS.
Don’t forget the tens upon tens of millions of Illegal Alien Terrorist that were not caught and roaming free across the United States at this very moment.
The Democrats have “aborted their base” so they replace those never born with illegal immigrants who don’t know English and who don’t care about who they vote for, That sums up the why of why they don’t want it to stop or be sorted in any way. And if too many immigrants come, they water down the culture, language and traditions of that country. They need to come into a “melting pot” not a “salad.” Right now, its growing more confused and divided every day here and if you try to complain, you’re racist.
We are imploding. I was broadsided by an illegal immigrant that got in his car and left seriously you think they pay car insurance? Seriously?
Grats to Obama. You are doin a great job through Biden on ruin8ng this Country. Go nbama Baby. During the revolution , you probely be one of the first ones shot. People are f3d up with this crap. Kyle L.
I say keep all the illegals and deport the Democrats. They’re the real “threat to democracy”!
We need to shut down any and all monies to sanctuary cities / states. Close the border. Change the messaging – Biden has made the Open Border policy clear to all and recent discussions have now mentioned amnesty! Finally, enforce our existing laws; if an Illegal is encountered for any reason – turn them over to officials and deport them. Then we can start to think about other changes. If you cannot uphold current law – why do we need more laws?
A skilled immigrant is a thing of the distant past everywhere If you happen to be white don’t bother