Welfare and immigration: a contradiction in terms

Karl Denninger points out the fundamental incompatibility between immigration and a welfare state.

Fundamentally-incompatible things can be serious trouble.

Put gasoline in your diesel-fueled vehicle and see what happens.  Or the converse.

Drink a bunch and then go operate some sort of machinery.  The outcome is likely to be very bad.

Welfare in general -- where you are given a right to take from someone else by force something you want but have not earned -- is incompatible with a lot of things.

One of the things it's incompatible with is an "open border".

This is math, not politics.  America has ~330 million people.  There are somewhere north of 7 billion people on this planet, most of them with standards of living that are below our poverty line.

If you have an open border and welfare it is only logical that all of them will want to come here.

It is mathematically certain that combining those two things will collapse the economy, asset markets and the government, leading to outright Civil War.

. . .

America long allowed virtually anyone to come through a regular border crossing (not simply walking in) and declaring that they wished to be American.  But being American meant taking the risk of the bad with the potential for the good.  There was no welfare, no Social Security, no disability, no Medicare or Medicaid.  There was no Section 8, nor "EBT".

In short you were free to come, and if you were of good character and demonstrated it by staying out of trouble you could stay, and eventually become a citizen.  But you never had a claim on anything that belonged to anyone else; you could only obtain any of it through voluntary exchange, and the other party both could and often did say "No."

Then we decided, mostly during the time of FDR and since, that being in the country conferred upon you the right to steal from others.

There's more at the link, and it's worth reading in full.

That explains the surge of illegal aliens in a nutshell.  Here, in the USA, they can claim all sorts of welfare payments from the US social "safety net".  They get something for nothing, just by being here.  If those rewards weren't there, there'd be little or no incentive for them to come here.  Sure, there are some illegal aliens who come here expecting - wanting - to work for a living;  but I think the evidence of the past couple of decades shows that the majority are here for what they can get out of the country, not what they can put into it.  Don't believe that?  Try these sources for a start:

• The Cost of Welfare Use By Immigrant and Native Households
• Report: More than half of immigrants on welfare
• Cutting welfare to illegal aliens would pay for Trump’s wall

I'm an immigrant myself - a legal one - so I understand the struggle to adjust to a new country and make a living:  yet, I've done that.  I've never used even one of the welfare programs typically used by illegal aliens and/or US citizens.  God willing, I don't expect to do so except in absolute, unavoidable emergency.  I came here expecting to have to provide for myself, and, thanks be to God, I've done so.  I cannot for the life of me understand how anyone with even a shred of pride in themselves could come here expecting - hoping! - to leech off the American taxpayer for the rest of their lives!

I think there's an obvious and very simple solution.  Make legal immigrants ineligible for welfare benefits for a minimum of five years after their arrival;  and make illegal aliens permanently ineligible for any state benefits at all.  I think that would have a drastic effect on the immigration situation, to the permanent advantage of these United States.

Peter