It’s a very personal issue for me. It took my mother tens of thousands of dollars and her entire life to become a resident of the US. She’s in her 70s now. Still not a citizen, and at this point, we’re not even interested in getting her full citizenship.
She’s worked in this country since the early 1980s. (Without getting into details, but both legally and illegally).
She’s paid into SSI/Disability//Medicare her entire life. She will NEVER be able to retire. I’m her retirement. I’m her health insurance too. I’m 34, and it’s extremely hard, but she’s my mother and it’s her time to rest and my turn to roll up my sleeves and give her a peaceful existence.
But yeah, it really bitters me up a bit when many people don’t understand this. Vaaaaaast majority of undocumented immigrants still have to pay taxes. (EVEN if they provide a fake social). You can’t get around that.
(Unless you’re working for money under the table, but they’re a negligible minority)
But most are paying into government coffers where they’ll never be able to claim retirement, disability, Medicare, unemployment insurance, any of that shit.
Everyone knows this. Politicians know this. Unscrupulous employers know this. Local city governments know this. Everyone.
If the government didn’t want undocumented folk, we could end this immediately. It’s not a question of ability, it’s a question of political will.
But imagine the billions of dollars that would vanish if they deported everyone? All the Americans that depend on those benefits?
Undocumented immigrants have provided relief to political pressure to the government. They’ve allowed our politicians to be wreck less and incompetent without being held accountable. They just demonize poor, hard-working folk. They’ll never have to pay these folks the government benefits they’ve been paying into. It’s such a fucking sweet deal to government budgets.
AND it makes the capitalists happy cause cheap labor, and shifts the blame on undocumented rather than them.
Meanwhile you have some dude in Alabama hating Mexicans, when they should really hate the rotten system.
This sounds fucking insane, but I feel so bad for these racists white folk. They’ve been lied to. They took advantage of their lack of education, and they weaponized their ignorance. Poor people don’t even know they’re being played. :(