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So y'all don't see a connection with overwhelmed local community infrastructure, the lack of affordable housing, not investing in enough in schools and healthcare, and a tidal wave of immigrants at ridiculously high levels?
Yeah, not all problems are connected, but some are. And while it's ultimately the fault of the politicians for creating the immigration policies, immigrants still have free will.
There is no "tidal wave" of immigrants anywhere in Europe nor in other "developed" countries. All the problems you mention exist on their own and would affect the local population just as much if there were no immigrants. Edit: we could argue about "immigrants" Vs. "refugees" here, but the regular immigrants don't come in small boats.
That's a straight up lie and you know it. 8 million in 4 years is a tidal wave no matter how you slice it.
Source? There are not even 8 million refugees in all of the EU together. The total refugee population is around 7 million in the entire EU.
And even if they would have all arrived in the last 4 years (which they didn't, less than half did & mostly from Ukraine), that "tidal wave" of around 1.5% of the total population sure is massive /s
Edit: The 8 million "immigrants" figure for the US is fake news as well.
Given all the immigrants I know put a lot more back into the economy than they get out of it, I suspect the only connection here is more likely those multinationals not paying their taxes due to loopholes that shouldn't exist. Especially since the record profits they generate as a result of this are not reflected in the workers wages either. Where does all that money go I wonder? Probably on that increasing the gap between the rich and poor.
Nice anecdotal evidence there bud.
Do you have some factual evidence to refute it?
Refute that you met an immigrant who paid taxes? It's not something to refute.
The fact that I've never met an immigrant that doesn't pay more back in than they get out would at the very least suggest there are far more of them than ones that are a burden on society. But if you have no interest in facts, statistics or evidence, what business do you have in the world of political discourse?
So y'all don't see a connection with overwhelmed local community infrastructure, the lack of affordable housing, not investing in enough in schools and healthcare, and a tidal wave of immigrants at ridiculously high levels?
No. I don't.
The problem is not immigrants.
The problem is a broken government system that fails to allocate resources effectively.
The problem is whole ass political parties are incentivized to keep the system broken so they can blame immigrants and leftists/liberals and get votes.
I mean, if you make it illegal for an undocumented immigrant to get a driver's license, you don't get to complain that undocumented immigrants are driving without licenses. If you make it illegal for undocumented immigrants to work legal jobs, you can't complain that undocumented immigrants are working under the table for sketchy employers at shit wages. You know?
There's only so many resources, no country can take millions of people in a single year and ramp up quickly enough to handle them.
I disagree. Countries don't have to "handle" people. Most people can handle themselves - if the laws and government allow it. Immigrants don't want to live on welfare and do nothing with their lives, any more than citizens do. They want to work, they want to have homes, they want to support themselves and their families. And if they get forced into accepting welfare or engaging in illegal work or criminal activity, it's because a broken immigration system doesn't allow them to live or work legally.
Ninety percent of the "border crisis" in the US or the "refugee crisis" in Europe could be solved if countries just let people in and gave them work permits.
Some people need help, I realize. And if social services in Western countries weren't so overloaded and underfunded by bad government policies they'd have room to help immigrants as well.
I mean, one in three calories produced in the United States is thrown away. Wasted. When you complain about food banks being overloaded by hungry immigrants, don't blame the immigrants, blame the stores that dump millions of dollars of product straight into dumpsters covered with bleach, and the laws that allow it.
Ten percent of homes in the United States are vacant. When you complain about housing costs being driven up by immigration, don't blame the immigrants, blame the landlords who let houses and apartments sit empty to keep rents high, and the laws that allow it.
And so on and so forth. If immigrants are "straining" our systems - and that strain has been much exaggerated in the media - it's not because we don't have enough resources. It's because we badly mismanage the resources we have. It's not a resource issue, it's a policy issue.
Fact check: what are the numbers on "ridiculously high levels"?
At least 8 million that we encountered during Biden's admin alone. https://budget.house.gov/imo/media/doc/ogr_icymi.pdf
That's a fake figure some Republicans pulled out of their ass: https://www.factcheck.org/2024/02/breaking-down-the-immigration-figures/
By Gods, that is an official document from what is supposed to be an oversight committee? It reads like a biased propaganda sheet with no references and spelling mistakes everywhere.
I see it says 8 million "migrant encounters" yet there is no source for that figure stated (only numerous other reports from the same committee). Is it 8 million different people? Did they all come in this year? Who is reporting the figure?
Also I'd like to know the definition of a "migrant encounter". That doesn't even state they are illegal migrants, or that there was anything illegal about the encounter. Who are they encountering?
The number of unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. in 2022 (11.0 million, and the most recent year we have complete data for) was still below the peak of 12.2 million in 2007.
Now, migrant encounters (i.e., at the border) are at their highest levels in recorded U.S. history (249,735), but still not far removed from the previous peak in 2000 (220,063).
The fluctuations over time may have less to do with whatever border security/immigration policy an administration has in place at a particular time, and more to do with how other countries are performing relative to us (i.e., when things are shitty in other countries, we receive more immigrants, and vice versa). And like others in this thread have mentioned, any strain on the economy unauthorized immigrants exert is a drop in the bucket compared with other factors.
So, no, there is not a sudden "ridiculously high" wave of immigration recently. It is fear mongering and you are buying into it. This is also not to say unauthorized immigration isn't an issue at all; it clearly has been trending upwards considerably since 2017. It is an issue, just not the behemoth that the GOP is making it out to be, and most certainly not the primary (or even secondary) cause for our economic woes.
The problems you point out are due to underfunding and under provisioning all these services. There is no tidal wave, just money not allocated in the right places.
Not if they pay taxes. While a lot of them can duck income tax, property and sales taxes will still get them.
You forgot about VAT, which is a huge source of revenue for the government.
Oh yes, they'll steal SSN numbers so they can pay taxes. Do you honestly believe that?
An SSN is not required to pay taxes.