Marriage as Bedrock of Soceity?

[SteveinMN]

From the National Immigration Law Center https://www.nilc.org/issues/economic...igfedprograms/

The law includes important exceptions for certain types of services. Regardless of their status, not-qualified immigrants are eligible for emergency Medicaid if they are otherwise eligible for their state’s Medicaid program. The law does not restrict access to public health programs that provide immunizations and/or treatment of communicable disease symptoms (whether or not those symptoms are caused by such a disease). School breakfast and lunch programs remain open to all children regardless of immigration status, and every state has opted to provide access to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC).Short-term noncash emergency disaster assistance remains available without regard to immigration status. Also exempted from the restrictions are other in-kind services necessary to protect life or safety, as long as no individual or household income qualification is required. In 2001, the U.S. attorney general published a final order specifying the types of benefits that meet these criteria. The attorney general’s list includes child and adult protective services; programs addressing weather emergencies and homelessness; shelters, soup kitchens, and meals-on-wheels; medical, public health, and mental health services necessary to protect life or safety; disability or substance abuse services necessary to protect life or safety; and programs to protect the life or safety of workers, children and youths, or community residents.

So we've legislated acting like decent human beings. Good.

I still find IL's statement a sloppy interpretation of how non-emergency services are provided to people who are not U.S. citizens. DW works in a position where she has to tell people like that 'no', sometimes to their faces.

In the statement Alan quoted, poor USians are eligible for the same emergency spending, so if someone wants to be pissed about how (or that) social-services money is spent, they can b!tch about American citizens just as much as "illegals".

It's not 'just ask and get gubmint money thrown at you you'll be so tired of the winning'. It's sad that the myth is so pervasive in some circles that the truth doesn't even get considered.

[Alan]

So we've legislated acting like decent human beings. Good.

So, emotional responses aside, it appears we do invest a portion of our spending on social programs and support for non-citizens in this country illegally. Why does pointing it out irritate people so much? Does it take away from the narrative that we are just a bunch of brutes lacking in sympathy for the less fortunate?

[Tammy]

Working in a safety net hospital - I see a lot of undocumented people getting care.

So I’m thinking about Alan‘s question –

I don’t mind when undocumented people receive services. I think it’s because in my mind I’m more of the world citizen than a US citizen.

So it doesn’t irritate me. But I’m probably a socialist or something ...

[ApatheticNoMore]

Immigrants do get benefits including ability to use the state sponsored college system, ability to go to community colleges many places etc.. The problem with this is that every single one of these systems is already extremely overcrowded almost to the point of being unusable as is.

[LDAHL]

Leaving aside the costs and benefits of immigration and whatever one feels the proper humanitarian response should be to suffering around the world; why would any sovereign state want to abdicate control of its borders? You can address those issues through a legal framework, and admit more or fewer or different origins of people, but you need control over your borders to do that.

Is it simply that many of us lack the patience to deal with this situation within the law?

[Teacher Terry]

Steve, I know your wife is a social worker and sees heartbreaking things all the time. There is so much misinformation about people that need services and what is available. This is done on purpose because upper classes want the middle class to hate poor people, illegals, etc so it will be easy to cut services to people who are perceived as lazy and takers. For example when I was in graduate school my professor pointed out that before cuts to programs are made you will see programs on tv showing lazy poor people. So one is showing a bunch of black people saying they didn’t want to work, etc. Then a month later republicans proposed a bunch of cuts to welfare programs.

[SteveinMN]

Just call me a fan of facts and not memes that purport that undocumented people are scamming the entire country and making the U.S. "less great".

There's nothing wrong with pointing out that several million people in this country are not legal citizens. But however they got here and however they stay here, they exist. In fact, undocumented workers are pillars of several industries in the U.S. (including, despite his ignorance of it, Trump's hospitality and development businesses). The fantasy that 10-11 million people (and their U.S. citizen children) can be pushed out of this country so their jobs can be filled by white people (who somehow will want to work for peanuts in crappy conditions) is a white wet dream. "Getting rid of the illegals" who already are here is a talking point and no more.

There's nothing wrong with pointing out that many undocumented residents end up hitting the safety net at some point or another -- but so do a lot of citizens. I'm guessing the vast majority of those who erroneously think undocumented residents are soaking up tax dollars have no idea how much of emergency-fund money goes to people who are here illegally and people who are here legally -- or that longer-term money doesn't happen.

There's nothing wrong with pointing out insecure areas of the country's border except when the ostensible national security argument really turns out to be a racial argument (we've got a few thousand miles of border with Canada; Trump isn't threatening to shut down the government for money for a wall to be built there). It's "hardening our borders" when we deal with the Canadian border, ports on both coasts (and the Gulf), and the joke that is the TSA; until then, it's xenophobia masked as "national security".

There is something wrong with a government apparatus that cannot distinguish U.S. law from its own rampant fear of non-whites. Don't like the law that allows people from other countries to come to the U.S. to seek asylum? Try to change that rather than blacken America's eye by tearing toddlers away from their parents at the border with some phony claim about security.

There is something wrong in insinuating that all our problems are solved if we just get rid of the "illegals". In 20 years Trump voters are going to be surprised to find the country is minority-white and that we're going to have to find a supply of new workers because white USians aren't having babies like they used to and nobody wants to give up their farm subsidies and disaster relief and Social Security because there aren't enough workers to pay for the taxes that fund those programs.

We need better ways to allow people to immigrate to this country. We need to quit funding the civil wars abroad that create refugees. We need to regain some compassion about our fellow residents rather than side with corporations who don't give a damn about people of any color. Immigration built this country and made it great long before some lumpy combover (whose own grandparents and whose wife's parents came from somewhere else and took advantage of the existing immigration laws) declared America wasn't great.

Get the facts right and try to be even-handed about what's going on and the discussion becomes very different.

[Alan]

Just call me a fan of facts and not memes …...

Good to know, but maybe you should have thrown in a couple of extra references to white people and corporations, that would have made it clearer.

[catherine]

I don’t mind when undocumented people receive services. I think it’s because in my mind I’m more of the world citizen than a US citizen.

So it doesn’t irritate me. But I’m probably a socialist or something ...

Love this response. I feel the same way.

[iris lilies]

Just call me a fan of facts and not memes that purport that undocumented people are scamming the entire country and making the U.S. "less great".
tions) is a white wet dream. "Getting

There's nothing wrong with pointing out that many undocumented residents end up hitting the safety net at some point or another -- but so do a lot of citizens. I'm guessing the vast majority of those who erroneously think undocumented residents are soaking up tax dollars have no idea how much of emergency-fund money goes to people who are here illegally and people who are here legally -- or that longer-term money doesn't happen.

If you are referring to me—of course I dont think that. Lord how I tire of those who tell me what I think.

Here’s what I actually think: with citizenship in this country comes responsibilities of course, but also it comes with privileges. It comes with the privilege of support from social programs. It is an awesomely important deal when an immigrant becomes a citizen, rights and privileges on both sides come with that status. It seems disrespectful to not recognize the awesome power and privilege of citizenship. The Man Without a Country is kind of a tearjerker for me, although granted it has an overwrought tone if I remember correctly, but the sentiment remains.

Perhaps legal non-citizens (green card workers and etc.) should and do get some benefit from social programs, that I don't know. Wont eeigh in on that one.

I do know that those here illegally should not expect me to fund their lives. I am not interested in doing that. They are not my fellow citizens.

i could protest that this has nothing to do with race, but living as I do in the capital of racial politics of the U.S. I have learned that is a fruitless arguement.