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Boundless Immigration: The Silent Killer of the Welfare State

There is no better time to reform our reckless immigration system.

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  April 12th, 2011 at 12:53 PM  | 

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As we finally embark on the imperative discussion of entitlement reform, we cannot overlook immigration and its disproportionate effect on the welfare state.

Our immigration system is stuck in the Kennedy days of the 1960′s when our population was half of what it is today.  Over the past few decades, in addition to the migration of 12 million+ illegals, we have allowed legal immigration to spiral out of control.  We no longer promote an immigration system which benefits Americans, rather an unsustainable system of chain migration.  This system encourages immigration which is too random, too low skilled, and quite simply too much.  While our historical average for annual immigration ranged from 200,000-400,000, the current inane system has allowed for over 1 million new immigrants almost every year for the past decade.  Again, a disproportionate number of those immigrants are low skilled.

There are obviously numerous challenges that are endemic in such a reckless immigration system, but the detrimental factor that is most relevant to the budget fight is the strain on our welfare system.  Yesterday, Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies published a timely study on the impact of immigration on the welfare state.  Here are some key findings:

  • In 2009 (based on data collected in 2010), 57 percent of households headed by an immigrant (legal and illegal) with children (under 18) used at least one welfare program, compared to 39 percent for native households with children.
  • Households with children with the highest welfare use rates are those headed by immigrants from the Dominican Republic (82 percent), Mexico and Guatemala (75 percent), and Ecuador (70 percent). Those with the lowest use rates are from the United Kingdom (7 percent), India (19 percent), Canada (23 percent), and Korea (25 percent).
  • The states where immigrant households with children have the highest welfare use rates are Arizona (62 percent); Texas, California, and New York (61 percent); Pennsylvania (59 percent); Minnesota and Oregon (56 percent); and Colorado (55 percent).
  • Welfare use tends to be high for both new arrivals and established residents. In 2009, 60 percent of households with children headed by an immigrant who arrived in 2000 or later used at least one welfare program; for households headed by immigrants who arrived before 2000 it was 55 percent.

Undoubtedly, as many have suggested, immigration in general has been good for the country throughout most of our history.  However, the puerile platitudes from immigration advocates concerning the benefits of immigration are as vapid as an unqualified declaration of the advantages of calorie intake to the human body.   Yes, a certain amount is absolutely necessary for the body to function.  A further increase in calorie intake might be innocuous in its effects.  However, overindulgence in calorie consumption is inimical to the body.  Furthermore, if the calories come from certain things like saturated fat, they can be harmful even in smaller quantities.  Just ask Michelle Obama.

Our immigration system works the same way.  We need a certain amount of immigration to sustain our growth and continue the American tradition to be the land of opportunity for those who seek liberty.  But if we continue to invite an unlimited number of immigrants and grant a disproportionate bias towards low skilled newcomers, we will no longer serve the best interests of the American citizens.  Any serious immigration system must be judicious in the numbers of immigrants, their origin (national security concerns), and their potential as an asset to this country.  Instead, we have a system based on chain migration, and in some ways, even a random lottery.

The last time we invited so many immigrants was during the great immigration wave from 1880-1924.  At that time, there was no robust welfare state to join as a permanent rent-seeker.  Now, the welfare state is so entrenched that even the boldest reform plans merely call for a reduction in the rate of increase, or the reinstatement to pre-Obama levels.  How are we ever going to control the entitlement crisis if we continue this reckless immigration policy?

Needless to say, illegal aliens are an even larger burden to the welfare system than legal immigrants.  According to the CIS study, a whopping 71% of illegal alien households benefited from at least one welfare program on behalf of their U.S. born children, compared to 52% of legal immigrant households.  If we were to grant them “a pathway to citizenship” as many Democrats and far too many Republicans suggest, they would have access to the full litany of welfare programs that are available to American citizens.

Yet, even minor state enforcement laws are met with well-funded and cumbersome lawsuits funded by George Soros and the ACLU.  Not surprisingly, the 9th Circuit agreed to uphold a stay on Arizona’s immigration law yesterday.  Arizona has the highest per capita burden of immigration welfare; yet, due to our convoluted system, they must wait years for a chance to secure their future.

Some states like Maryland have adopted the opposite approach.  Yesterday, the Maryland General Assembly approved in-state tuition for illegal aliens.  Without a real push for reform from Republicans in Washington, we will become a lawless nation.

As we propose ideas to reform the entitlement conundrum, it would be naive to ignore the need for immigration reform and its relevance to entitlement spending.  It is time to engage in a mature discussion about the future of our immigration policy without the demagoguery and the race baiting that is employed by the left and the Bush Republicans.  Our eventual presidential nominee must be willing to seriously address illegal and legal immigration reform.  Immigration is the sort of issue that separates the men from the boys among conservatives.  Any presidential candidate who is serious about curbing the growth of entitlements must be willing to curb the growth of immigration to some degree.

If we fail to modernize our immigration system, not only will we have a permanent entitlement crisis, we will have a permanent Democrat majority.

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  • danielhill2008

    and I don’t mean in just the lily-white “Leave It To Beaver” sense. We all had a sense of pride in being an American, and pledged our allegiance to the flag every morning in school. And meant it.

    About twenty years ago I sat in a McDonald’s in Tampa and looked around, and realized this country was turning into a third-world nation. Ethnic pride is one thing, but leaving some fly-swarmed dung-heap crap hole country and coming here and turning this country into what you just left is another. The freebies have to stop. It’s destroying us.

  • aesthete

    I.e, bar immigrants from access to it.

    • juumanistra

      Which I agree with, incidentally: The Equal Protection Clause makes reference to all persons under the jurisdiction the United States, so one cannot split hairs between the native-born and immigrants. Or citizens and resident aliens. The issue has, sadly, been litigated to death and it’s rather clear there’re no loopholes to exploit.

      Well, beyond the obvious, at any rate. Being subject to the jurisdiction of the United States means being in the country via legal channels: Illegals can thus be barred from welfare programming with impunity.

      • Sam Gamgee

        Can you cite a case or an article about this?

  • LeaveMeAlone

    to talk without specificity about immigrants’ use of “welfare.” The spectrum of services and costs includes far more:
    welfare,
    food stamps,
    housing assistance,
    home heating/energy assistance,
    public schools,
    emergency room usage,
    Fed, State, Local language interpretation (forms and personnel),
    auto insurance costs to make up for uninsured motorist accidents,
    law enforcement (gangs, domestic violence, accidents, etc.),
    court expenses for the above,
    –and I’m sure I’ve missed some others.

    As Milton Friedman put it, ?It?s just obvious you can?t have free immigration and a welfare state.?

    • http://redmeatconservative.blogspot.com/ dhorowitz3

      TANF
      WIC
      SSI
      Medicaid
      school lunch programs

      • aesthete

        to get rid of as much of the welfare state as possible. Immigration restrictions are in essence a restriction of freedom — freedom of movement, labor, and contract. There should be as little restriction of these vital freedoms as possible, and while it may be necessary to restrict immigration (I think that’s extreme, myself), we should try to avoid this to the extent possible.

        • http://redmeatconservative.blogspot.com/ dhorowitz3

          the importation of over 1 million immigrants, predominantly low skilled, is a limit on freedom? There’s got to be a limit somewhere.

          • aesthete

            If a business wants to hire an immigrant, immigration law gets in the way. If an immigrant would like to go to private property where he’s invited and he/she is stopped, then his freedom of movement is restricted.

            I think that the most harmful part of the Kennedy bill is that it eliminates immigration systems that allowed for temporary immigration for low-wage jobs. Most of the Hispanic immigrants living here with their families would have been working here by themselves and sending money down to their families in Mexico, instead — helping to create a middle class in Mexico and to make agriculture and construction more inexpensive for us. (This pattern has precedent in Italy, Greece, and many other countries — I highly recommend T Sowell’s Ethnic America for a good primer on the subject.) Allowing for temporary work migration, and a restriction of welfare benefits for migrants and citizens alike, would do wonders to alleviate the negative effects of immigration.

          • tadams1138

            Thought I was alone among conservatives for some time. Amen to what you said.

            Honestly, cracking down on immigration (legal or otherwise) on the basis that immigrants take advantage of our bloated and corrupt welfare system sounds about as reasonable to me as instituting a one child policy to prevent welfare babies.

  • Next93

    My grandparents came to this country in the 20′s. Stepping off the boat, they had two priorities: learn English and find a job. They were expected to (a) adapt to the way things are done in America, and (b) add thier unique ethic flavor to the melting pot.

    Today’s immigants also have two priorities: learn how to apply for welfare and find a lawyer. They’re expected to hunker down in thier little ghettos, obey the ward heelers, and vote democratic (well, ok, that part hasn’t changed since the 20′s), Today’s immigrants don’t need to learn English, they don’t have to adapt to American values and customs (that’s OUR job, now!), and to a large extent they’re exempted from the work rules and even the laws that natural-born Americans have to obey because, WE’RE intolerant.

    When I was in high school it was fashionable to point at the inhumanity of Ellis island, and to claim that the immigrants came here thinking “that the streets were paved with gold”. Well, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I know that my grandparents were under no illusions about having to work for a living in the new world, but they knew that they’d be able to keep what they earned, which wasn’t true in “the old country”, and that thier children would have opportunities that were denied all but the aristocracy and the padrones in Italy. Growing up a generation later, I still heard on an almost daily basis how lucky we were to be in this country, and how proud my grandparents were to become citizens.

    As for Ellis Island, when you get past the propaganda, you find that the treatment of immigrants was designed to be humane, respectful, and as dignified as possible, while efficiently performing a very reasonable set of tests to weed out criminals, those with communicable diseases, and people who would quite likely become burdens on society (the lame, the feeble minded, and those with no demonstrable job skills). Yes, there were some abuse and some excesses, but those also happen in our politially correct child welfare system today, so to say that Ellis Island was some sort of purgatory (for a whole WEEK!) is just nonsensical.

  • simplyscott

    I am more often than not one to be on the side of the immigrants. It’s hard to fault someone for doing everything possible to get to a place where life is better, sometimes so remarkably better (even at the US poverty level) that almost no citizen of this country could fathom it. I am a “give me your tired, your poor” kind of guy.

    That said, I whole-heartedly agree. There has to be a limit, a policy, a rational approach that can be adopted to benefit our country without being harsh or unjust.

    Like most things in this country, immigration policy needs a major overhaul. There must be limits to the number of people allowed to immigrate, and there should be some attention to the social and educational level of those people. Or shall we continue to see people come to America, get their masters and Ph Ds and then go home. Those are the kinds of people we need to keep.

    I never mean to suggest that the poor from other countries shouldn’t be here or can’t contribute to this nation, but to use a nautical metaphor (retired Navy, so why not?), there is a capacity for every life boat; exceeding it means the boat sinks.

    • melatr7

      Your first paragraph describes me as well, and your second is common sense. Immigration is supposed to be limited and controlled by policies, but we see how that goes. Washington seems to think it’s merely a suggestion.

      Having said that, I have a little heartburn with your third paragraph. IMHO, immigrants who come here to recieve higher learning should fill their vessel and go home! With funding if necessary. That is the best way we have to share our bounty and truly help the less fortunate- leading to LESS reliance on US. Another doctor or teacher or economist in a country already teeming with them is rather unremarkable while their potential in their own country can really make a difference. Imagine another doctor at your local hospital compared to ONE with a clinic in Haiti.

      The problem with dismissing ‘lower-skilled’ immigrants is that their ‘empty cup’ is full of potential. There are plenty of examples of unskilled immigrants ‘making it’ here in the US. What they bring to the table is DRIVE and an appreciation for life in America. Way beyond what the average American born citizen has. Sometimes I think they are the only ones keeping the American Dream alive.

      Of course, all of that has to do with LEGAL immigration as it should be- expecting and even DEMANDING that those who come here assimilate to OUR country, OUR laws, OUR society, OUR language, OUR allegiance- or leave. They should be TAUGHT and sponsored.

      At this point, I would COMPLETELY support a two year moratorium on ALL immigration (except student visas) just to be able to slow it all down and take stock of our situation, BUILD THAT WALL, and do what we have to do to make our country safe again.

      Maybe then we could restart the previously successful programs on a limited basis and in a responsible way.

      ILLEGALS cost the US, and every State in the US, and every legal CITIZEN in every State in the US, unimaginable harm DAILY!

  • redpenny

    but we don’t need to import anymore uneducated,low skill folks.We’ve managed to grow enough of them ourselves————-others need not apply.

  • albro62

    We the people can decide whether or not illegals stay. I see so many people write about immigration, and the detrimental effects it has on our national budget, but these same people let them get hired, “because it’s cheaper!” But is it really? I think first of how much time I see wasted just trying to communicate with them. And they refuse to acknowledge that they know English, just so they get away with their mistakes on the job, and free benefits in everything else.

    Consider all the costs before you allow yourselves to think it’s less expensive labor for your business. And you may think this even if you’re paying them under the table, but you’d still be wrong.

    All these entitlement programs cost money; money you all complain about because your taxes keep going up. But if no one hired them, and we only hired English speaking workers who are here legally, and we collected taxes from their pay and sent it to the government, it might mean a slightly lower number on your bottom line, but it would go a long way to resolving the deficit.

    We control our destiny to a greater degree that we want to admit. It’s just easier to complain about government, than to take it back from the 545 people who are holding us hostage.

    OUR vote as a group holds more weight than theirs. WE have a chance to change them every election until WE get what WE want. I just cannot believe that WE are not taking advantage of our power. I thought this is what the Tea Party is all about. Problem is, we voted back the same anal orifices who are causing the most problems, because they have spent their entire career setting up this welfare state to guarantee themselves a voting block for lifetimes to come.

    Before it’s too late, let’s start to help ourselves. Hire ONLY legals, pay them what YOU can afford to pay them and make a profit, pay the taxes, and vote these bums out. You have no problem changing your underwear, something no one can tell one way or the other. We can see this mess, and we keep letting it pile up. Let’s make a concerted effort to change the things we can!

    We are free today; next week I’m not so sure about. We are free because we can vote in large enough numbers to make a change. We MUST make the change before it’s before our ability. Before we are an American minority.

  • Thomas Crown

    The welfare state necessarily relies on having a bunch of young people work to support the variously-aged-but-usually-old who don’t. There are three ways, in any combination or alone, that this can be made to function well.

    1. Kill statistically everyone at a fairly young age. Getting them to drink, eat lots of red meat, and smoke a lot is a good first step. Industrial accidents and lots of bad health outcomes help.

    2. Have lots and lots of babies, and keep doing so. If you’re going to support the top of the pyramid, and the top is heavy, it’s probably a good idea to have a gigantic base underneath it.

    3. Whack the heck out of the transfer payments made so that you don’t need a terribly broad base and/or short-lived humans.

    The early welfare states (including ours) could survive because they did 1. and 2. As late as the Sixties, a heckuva lot of Americans ate lots of red meat, smoked, drank, got meh health care, and had a lot, and I mean a lot, of sex, and they did that in the context of being married young. (Surprisingly, unless you’re married, married people have multiples of the amount of sex that unmarried people do.) We could have a reasonably generous system because the top wasn’t heavy and the base was wide.

    We decided, in the Seventies, to stop having babies, and we got darned serious about it in the Nineties. (A couple of boomlets haven’t done anything to change the long-term trend.) Food got healthier, smoking stopped happening, and health outcomes improved by leaps and bounds. In other words, the pyramid narrowed at the bottom and the top got heavier.

    Benefits have remained indexed to COLA and we’ve added new ones to boot.

    So.

    We’re largely unwilling to cut the payments, and no one is rushing to either die sooner or get married younger and have more babies.

    Large-scale immigration broadens the pyramid at the bottom.

    This has nothing to do with the merits of adding to our immigrant population, or indeed, anything to do with the societal value of immigration except in this narrow respect.

    Bonus points: Within one to two generations, immigrants and their descendants stop having babies (they assimilate), and, in a bad omen for this fix in the future, the rest of the planet is seriously deciding not to have kids. They’re doing that more and more, faster and faster.

    I do think, however, that this needs to be viewed in terms not merely of entitlement spending, but also entitlement funding.

  • tojoma

    In my visits to Sweden over the years, I’m always amazed at the cultural slide to lazy over there. I’m also amazed that they stay afloat. People move to Sweden from everywhere in the world and live like kings compared to my wife and I, and often they never even work. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen, and I don’t want to happen here, though, as you’ve exposed, it is.

  • 2warabnvet

    Let?s get our definitions straight, they aren’t “immigrants”, they are illegal aliens. They are law-breaking invaders who demand that we cater to their needs and cultures. Basically, they are good Democrats.

  • http://www.resistnet.com/profile/semperfi sirjason

    This video explains in detail the perils of immigration, especially the Muslim immigration population into Europe, the USA and round the world! Read and Heed!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9atIjykihkc&feature=player_embedded

  • simplyright4me

    We would not need any immigration if we would stop killing the unborn-50 million dead and still going strong. A really sick commentary on the greatest nation in the world.