The Immigration and Social Services BrickWhat Good Government Actually Requires
In the beginning — and in many ways it was before there was light — this nation needed to be built. And to build it, it needed people.
Johnny Appleseed planted apple seeds. They sprouted apple trees. Lots of apple trees produce lots and lots of apples.
This brings us to two intertwined topics that get separated in political debate but belong together in honest conversation. People. And the services that allow people to contribute.
I don’t have an easy answer. Nobody does. But before we can assign an answer we have to accept both the reality of the problem and the reality of the blessing.
The Statue of Liberty holds aloft a torch of welcome. She is not extending her middle finger and charging an entrance fee.
France gifted us that great work of art in 1885. Our need for immigrants was different then. But our need hasn’t disappeared — it has changed. The requirement for screening and regulation cannot be overstated. But remember those apples.
Those apples rotting on the ground because you are too good to go harvest them.
Yes. You.
The media shows us undocumented farm workers as if this is a new and alarming development. In 1885 we welcomed farm workers and cobblers — not apple pie bakers but shoemakers. Today we still need farm workers. We also need talented engineers, skilled tradespeople, and everything in between. And if you believe you have a bad job because of an immigrant you are genuinely unable to look in the mirror.
Our needs haven’t really changed. Our honesty about them has.
Any clear eyed person can see the need for immigrants. They can also see why people aren’t flooding our shores with pockets full of cash. They come with what they have and they work with what they find. We need to help them get established. That means social services. Not as charity. As investment in the people who are going to harvest the apples and build the houses and pay into the system.
This is not about rapists, grifters, or predators. We don’t have to look at immigrants to find those.
Now the social services argument — and here is where the two threads become one.
What about your neighbor? The kids next door who look hungry. The single mother. The children who need vaccinations or fell and broke an arm. The family whose father was just laid off. The farmer who lost his crops because someone in power decided to take away his fertilizer subsidy to settle a political score.
We need social services. They are generally provided by the states and generally backed by the federal government. There was a reason for this. A good one.
Social service programs and their funding must be protected from the whims of any politician regardless of who holds the office. Threatening to cut funding because a district voted against you should be an impeachable offense. Full stop. No exceptions. No party exemptions.
We are a wealthy country. We are — when we choose to be — a compassionate one. We should never fail to provide basic services to the people who need them. Not because it is politically convenient. Because it is who we said we were when we put that torch in Lady Liberty’s hand.
And here is the cold hard fact that nobody wants to say out loud.
An undocumented but employed immigrant pays into Social Security and Medicare every paycheck. They will never be able to collect retirement benefits from either program.
We are accusing them of draining a system they are subsidizing.
