The Patriot Post® · It Pays to Be Illegal

Amidst the circling stories of Venezuelan gangs and animal-eating Haitians lies a core and expanding crisis: Illegal immigrants are overwhelming our public assistance programs, and our nation faces the inevitable consequences of taking in millions of unvetted new “residents” in a short period of time.

Crime has gone up. Streets are increasingly unsafe. The homeless problem is growing. And public resources are at an all-time low.

A reasonable answer to this problem would be to first close the border and then address the rapidly growing shortage of food, supplies, and housing. Yet stemming the flow of illegal immigrants and alleviating the stress on many communities is not the approach that the Biden/Harris administration, or any of its fellow Democrat colleagues, intends to take. In fact, as demonstrated by its own actions, the current administration believes the best way to handle the massive influx of illegal immigrants is to incentivize more of the same crippling activity.

Countless citizens, like those in Springfield, Ohio, have blown the whistle on their towns being overrun with illegals. They have described the increasing struggle to access the resources that have previously been designated for American citizens, like food stamps and medical care. The sudden surge in population has created a need for public assistance that goes far beyond what the local system is equipped to handle, leaving everyone with far less.

Furthermore, as middle- and lower-income communities work to allocate limited goods and services to those in need, any new proposals to expand housing, food, and other aid programs for families in need are almost exclusively geared toward noncitizens. Everyone else gets to pick from what’s left of the options that have been in place for decades.

In February, New York City Mayor Eric Adams launched a $53 million pilot program that the New York Post reports will “provide asylum seekers arriving at the Roosevelt Hotel with the city cash to help them buy food, according to city records.”

As the program rolled out, it was reported that each qualifying migrant received about $1,400 per month in the form of a pre-paid debit card. The goal, apparently, was to cut the costs of paying for illegal immigrants to live in hotel rooms, as giving them a taxpayer-funded card was apparently the best idea the Democrat mayor could conjure up.

Across the country, in California, Democrat legislators passed a controversial bill that would grant access to the state’s taxpayer-funded home loan program to illegal immigrants. Again, according to the New York Post, this program provides “up to $150,000 in down payment assistance for eligible first-time home buyers.” Those who opposed the bill, all of whom were Republicans, argued that the inflationary and immigrant-enticing measure was a “handout” and a “betrayal” of American citizens.

Fortunately, Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed the bill.

Nevertheless, the state legislature followed up the housing assistance program with a bill that adds $300 a week in unemployment benefits to the mounting list of goodies that the Left is awarding to those who break our immigration laws.

These programs are infuriating just as they are, but they become even more so when compared to what our own low-income and homeless populations — and military veterans — have access to. As reported by Newsweek, “A family of four migrants in New York City receives more monthly funding than a family of four that includes a military veteran who receives disability compensation.” A separate article revealed that “hundreds of migrant families in New York City will be getting more food money than the city’s low-income residents do from Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.”

Chicago city officials seem to be doing similar things. Amid the influx of migrants bused to the city last year per its status as a “sanctuary city,” a report in the UK Daily Mail revealed that thousands of dollars in housing assistance had been provided to migrants, as well as paying “a medical firm a staggering $7.2 million for staffing shelters for just one week, according to official records.”

In response to the prioritization of these illegals over taxpaying citizens, Chicago residents have been venting their frustrations to their local leaders, accusing the panel of city council members of stealing their money.

Still, despite the growing number of U.S. citizens publicly expressing their outrage over what is clearly an America-last administration and political party, Kamala Harris is still running with the Democrat narrative that deportations are bad and that removing these people from our country is heartless. Demonstrating yet another of her many accents during a speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Harris said of Trump and his plans to address this unprecedented invasion, “They have pledged to carry out the largest deportation — a mass deportation — in American history. Imagine what that would look like and what that would be.”

In addition to mocking the idea of deportations, the Biden-Harris administration’s actions consistently suggest that Harris does not plan to return to a sustainable method of legal immigration but instead will do everything she can to keep these people here. Most recently, Harris bragged about subverting viable immigration laws with a policy that has shielded thousands of Haitian migrants from law enforcement: “We extended temporary protected status to over 100,000 Haitian migrants. They need support. They need protection.”

Clearly, Harris and most leftist officials are in lockstep in their desire to overwhelm our country. They roll out the red carpet of incentives for those who have come here illegally while extending it to those who are making their way to our southern border as we speak.

As the floodgates have been open for several years, it is impossible to ignore the dire reality of our nation’s future if we continue to incentivize these illegals. If Kamala Harris wins the White House in November, we might all look like Springfield, Aurora, Chicago, and New York City, to name a few.