I have a coworker who is vehemently anti-immigrant. One of the reasons she gives for this stance is that they come to this country unvaccinated and spread disease. Guess who is also anti-vax?
THE DUALITY OF MAN, or something
IS THAT SOME KIND OF SICK JOKE!
Brexit was the best experiment for that. They kick immigrants out so all jobs went to the local population. People didn’t want them, produce was left in the fields, deliveries were not made, tables were not waited on and some companies folded. Anyway, immigration is now back and higher than it used to be, but from other countries.
I have SSI it pays peanuts, if I didn’t have a job ontop of it, I’d have nothing.
The rules are overly strict and an absolute poverty trap. I cannot legally have 2000 dollars to my name and anything I earn through ANY means must be reported meaning I CAN’T have a side hustle.
I need to stay on the program because my health insurance is tied to it, if I ever lost it I would be physically and mentally near death within a month.
I’m one of the people they’re talking about when they mention Welfare Queens
Right-wing ideology doesn’t have to be consistent - it merely has to shift the blame for society’s ills away from those who caused them.
So, rich people
The anti-immigrant goons don’t get the Schrödinger reference.
Illegal immigrants actually pay into state and local taxes way more than legal citizens and green-card holders do.
And since they’re here undocumented, they can’t get anything in return for paying those taxes.
This is absolutely possible when people receive welfare and simultaneously work without paying tax. I live in a neighborhood where people are doing this and they are quite open about it, too.
The trouble is that people either do A) deny their existence and everyone who claims differently is a Nazi. Or B) become a right winger or demand there shall be no welfare efforts.
There’s an estimation done in Germany every year. And the result is always that only around 4% of the the people on welfare abuse it. Compared to the damage that is done to the state by clever tax evasion of super rich people, these are peanuts. But going after these 4% of welfare abusers is of course easier so that’s why they put a lot effort into it.
It is kind of strange how much more of a visceral reaction people have to the idea of poor people cheating the system, compared to rich people cheating the system. Logically, it seems like the latter should get people a lot more riled up, which I guess speaks to the power of their propaganda.
Oh but you see, the rich guys are resourceful and clever while the poor are lazy criminals.
I’m from a country that people wants to immigrate away. Even I do sometimes.
But at the same time I am disturbed by some actions of the minority of the immigrants who come to my country. I am leaning to be an anti-immigrant and because of that I feel hypocritical and xenophobic.
Sometimes I think it is cruel to be against immigrants because people do not choose their place of birth and their family, just like me.
I’m just not sure what is right, and this loop bothers me.
For me everything is based on how they get there and how they conduct themselves.
I have been an immigrant to several countries and I still am, but
I had all of the proper paperwork,
I didn’t sneak across any borders illegally,
I didn’t overstay my visas,
I didn’t pay some guy on a boat to bring me there,
I didn’t commit any crimes that are worse than jaywalking,
I didn’t get clumped together with other people from my country and try to impose my values on the citizens of the country I was in,
I didn’t do any under the table work,
I paid all of my taxes.
These are the thing that I expect from others as well.
After having gone through the process of trying to help an Indian trans person find a job in my country in order to allow them to get here legally and having found the requirements being draconic, I don’t care about anyone illegally moving to a country as long as they behave respectfully, which they most usually do because conflicts where the police gets involved are more likely to get them deported. Do I want them to pay taxes? Sure, but the extent to which they’re able to pay taxes depends on the country deciding to regularize their status.
Rules are rules and if you don’t follow them, the country doesn’t want you.
It’s a different conversation when you talk about the consequences of such policies, but that’s what the country decided and those are the rules.
A bit tangential, but there are a lot of cases when the country doesn’t want you, especially if you listen to the opinion of the officials. They are quick to judge one to be too poor, too old, too stupid, too smart, too demanding, too questioning their decisions, etc.
That’s a lot of words for “I can’t (won’t?) see past my own privilege and have no compassion for people who don’t have the same options I do.”
Then too bad, I don’t have an option to fly into space, yet you won’t see me trying to glue myself to the next rocket that SpaceX launches.
It’s especially ironic to hear that from Americans lol my house is older than your country, what “immigrants” you are talking about
Sure, we’re a “nation of immigrants,” but at what point does one stop being an immigrant? How many generations does it take? And if I’m still an immigrant even though my family has been here for generations, then by rights I should have a “home” country that I can easily return to, but I don’t. Sure, I could in theory immigrate back to Ireland and the UK where my ancestors came from, but you and I both know that no one would ever consider me “Irish” or “British.” I would always still be an “American,” which brings us back to the original question of how long it takes people to stop being immigrants.
I claim: never.
You are what you are ethnically, that’s it. No amount “living in America” will suddenly make you “American”.
It’s exactly the same for Russians for example, but in Russian we have 2 words to say “Russian”, one of them implies ethnicity and the other one implies citizenship. You obviously can become “xxx citizen”, but you never become the ethnicity, unless you already are.
Because I don’t think we can speak of “US ethnicity”, hence only “citizenship” remains. As such, anyone who becomes a citizen automatically looses “immigrant” status, even if only after a couple of years.
Let 👏🏾 in 👏🏾 more 👏🏾 illegal 👏🏾 immigrants 👏🏾
