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No, it's just an inspid rant. Let's pick a spot at random: But at the same time the state somehow has money to house feed and medically care of millions of il

No, it's just an inspid rant. Let's pick a spot at random: But at the same time the state somehow has money to house feed and medically care of millions of illegal immigrants Do you honestly think the government is literally simply "housing" all the authorized immigrants? As in, literally writing checks to their landlords? And literally paying their grocery bills, each and every week? Do you actually think that's what's happening? Remember, the rant wasn't referring simply to new arrivals, but literally to all the "millions" who have been here for decades. With the tacit approval of US society at large, for the simple reason that (authorized or not) the vast majority form an indispensible part of its workforce, doing the hard work that most Americans refuse to do. I'm not saying the migrant crisis isn't a huge, costly mess. But for whatever is happening, I just don't get these weird, distorted and emotionally manipulative narratives.

stogot 2y ago
It depends on the country. I know that in the UK this actually tends to be the case last I checked. I was reading this from a UK perspective (western) not a US . I don’t know how much housing the US provides
- aguaviva 2y ago
  Ok, let's try the UK then. Actual estimates for the total number if illegal migrants (including children) in the UK top out at around 800,000. Yet the commenter above said that your government was paying to house and feed "millions" of them. Last we checked, "milions" means >= 2,000,000. Do you still think that what the commenter is saying "actually tends to be the case" in the UK?
  - stogot 2y ago
    Previously you said authorized (legal). Now you’re changing your argument to illegal. How about you look up how many refugees European nations are paying to house vs getting emotional and changing the goalposts. I suspect the number is not millions, but this does not include medical care or other humanitarian care. The GBP/EURO/USD spent is in the billions and the cost was the premise, not necessarily the number of people. If OP exaggerated, correct it and move on to the substance of the argument. It doesn’t make their entire post insipid (your words)
    - aguaviva 2y ago
      Previously you said authorized (legal). Now you’re changing your argument to illegal. I meant "unauthorized". It was just a typo, honest. How about you look up how many refugees European nations are paying to house It was the conflation of "refugees" with "illegal immigrants" in the commenter's post that I took issue with. The two categories might sound the same but are entirely different. In particular the latter category definitely do not receive subsidized subsidized housing or benefits the way actual legally recognized asylum seekers, aka "refugees" do.
Cumpiler69 2y ago
>No, it's just an inspid rant. This exact attitude is what gets the right wing growing. > As in, literally writing checks to their landlords? In some EU countries (where I'm from), yes. A student friend of mine was even rejected by landlord who wanted Syrians because the government would pay their rent. But thank you for your valuable contribution to this conversation.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- aguaviva 2y ago
  A student friend of mine was even rejected by landlord who wanted Syrians because the government would pay their rent. And are they there ... illegally? Or legally? Are there, in fact, per what you said, "millions" of illegal immigrants being housed and fed in the EU on public subsidy? I know you said "illegal immigrants and refugees", so I misquoted you slghtly. But the bigger point is -- why conflate the two, when the numbers and overall situations are obviously entirely different? (In particular - while legally recognized asylum seekers might be eligible to obtain housing subsidies, illegal migrants quite definitely cannot). To be charitable, one can assume there was no manipulative intent, and you were just being careless. But if so, then you'll have to acknowledge that that's why your missive appeared, at first glance, to be well, a rant. The solution is to listen to their worries and take action to fix them instead of ignoring them and calling them stupid It isn't the concerns of the voters, but the relentless cognitive distortions we keep hearing about push-button topics such as this one (generally promoted by ideologues and pundits, rather than the voters themselves) that are, for want of a better term, stupid. (And on the subject of stupid, my initial response contained a horrible typo -- should have said "unauthorized", rather than "authorized").
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > And are they there ... illegally? Or legally? Not relevant to the political question. The point is there is anger at the number of migrants European politicians let in.
slowmovintarget 2y ago
[flagged]
- aguaviva 2y ago
  Yes, you are. I'm not, and it's difficult to see what you think you might gain from this conversation style.
  - slowmovintarget 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - aguaviva 2y ago
      The "but" is a denial of what preceded it. I think you misread me there. It wasn't a denial at all. It was simply saying: whatever the state of the mess -- weird, distorted narratives about the mess don't help us out of the mess. And in fact are a huge part of the mess. Exactly as you put it.
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  > In my neighborhood This is one of those moments I wish people had a way (I guess you could just add it in the notes) to mark their HN account with a region. Are you in the UK, maybe? The immigration issue sounds very different in the EU vs US, even if many of the sound bites rhyme.
munksbeer 2y ago
You're commenting from a US perspective but the person you're responding to was commenting from a European perspective. In Europe (including the UK), we have seen an enormous surge in asylum seekers and they're housed, fed, etc, with tax money. I believe the latest annual figure is around £5bn, which is not insignificant. I don't know what the solution is, as an immigrant to the UK myself I find it difficult to judge or comment, but you need to keep in mind that Europe has a welfare model quite different from your US. We typically pay more taxes and have a higher expectation of public services. When those services are deteriorating, people look for someone to blame. Immigrants are an easy target. In reality, it is much more to do with the aging population and fewer in the workforce, but that doesn't mean that we're also not paying a lot of money for asylum seekers.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- youngtaff 2y ago
  The UK costs are due to the previous government not processing asylum seekers and other irregular immigrants in a timely manner and also the fact all the processing, care etc is outsourced to profit making private companies We’re generally only talking about 50,000 people a year coming in via these routes Of course Brexit didn’t help with the policing of it all either
- com2kid 2y ago
  > In Europe (including the UK), we have seen an enormous surge in asylum seekers and they're housed, fed, etc, with tax money. I believe the latest annual figure is around £5bn, which is not insignificant. That number sounds big, but for some perspective my city (Seattle) is spending more than that to build light rail tracks to one particular (not that very dense!) neighborhood. 0.42% of the UK budget is spent on helping people who have had everything in their lives ripped away. People who have watched family members get shot, had their houses destroyed by bombs, and for some, their entire homeland turned into rubble. The UK populace spent decades electing corrupt leaders who purposefully destroyed civic institutions. Of course things are falling apart. Immigrants don't have much to do with that...
aguaviva 2y ago
all the authorized immigrants That should have read "unauthorized", and without the negating particle the rest makes very little sense.

stogot 2y ago

It depends on the country. I know that in the UK this actually tends to be the case last I checked. I was reading this from a UK perspective (western) not a US . I don’t know how much housing the US provides

aguaviva 2y ago
Ok, let's try the UK then. Actual estimates for the total number if illegal migrants (including children) in the UK top out at around 800,000. Yet the commenter above said that your government was paying to house and feed "millions" of them. Last we checked, "milions" means >= 2,000,000. Do you still think that what the commenter is saying "actually tends to be the case" in the UK?
- stogot 2y ago
  Previously you said authorized (legal). Now you’re changing your argument to illegal. How about you look up how many refugees European nations are paying to house vs getting emotional and changing the goalposts. I suspect the number is not millions, but this does not include medical care or other humanitarian care. The GBP/EURO/USD spent is in the billions and the cost was the premise, not necessarily the number of people. If OP exaggerated, correct it and move on to the substance of the argument. It doesn’t make their entire post insipid (your words)
  - aguaviva 2y ago
    Previously you said authorized (legal). Now you’re changing your argument to illegal. I meant "unauthorized". It was just a typo, honest. How about you look up how many refugees European nations are paying to house It was the conflation of "refugees" with "illegal immigrants" in the commenter's post that I took issue with. The two categories might sound the same but are entirely different. In particular the latter category definitely do not receive subsidized subsidized housing or benefits the way actual legally recognized asylum seekers, aka "refugees" do.

Cumpiler69 2y ago

>No, it's just an inspid rant. This exact attitude is what gets the right wing growing. > As in, literally writing checks to their landlords? In some EU countries (where I'm from), yes. A student friend of mine was even rejected by landlord who wanted Syrians because the government would pay their rent. But thank you for your valuable contribution to this conversation.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
aguaviva 2y ago
A student friend of mine was even rejected by landlord who wanted Syrians because the government would pay their rent. And are they there ... illegally? Or legally? Are there, in fact, per what you said, "millions" of illegal immigrants being housed and fed in the EU on public subsidy? I know you said "illegal immigrants and refugees", so I misquoted you slghtly. But the bigger point is -- why conflate the two, when the numbers and overall situations are obviously entirely different? (In particular - while legally recognized asylum seekers might be eligible to obtain housing subsidies, illegal migrants quite definitely cannot). To be charitable, one can assume there was no manipulative intent, and you were just being careless. But if so, then you'll have to acknowledge that that's why your missive appeared, at first glance, to be well, a rant. The solution is to listen to their worries and take action to fix them instead of ignoring them and calling them stupid It isn't the concerns of the voters, but the relentless cognitive distortions we keep hearing about push-button topics such as this one (generally promoted by ideologues and pundits, rather than the voters themselves) that are, for want of a better term, stupid. (And on the subject of stupid, my initial response contained a horrible typo -- should have said "unauthorized", rather than "authorized").
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > And are they there ... illegally? Or legally? Not relevant to the political question. The point is there is anger at the number of migrants European politicians let in.

slowmovintarget 2y ago

[flagged]

aguaviva 2y ago
Yes, you are. I'm not, and it's difficult to see what you think you might gain from this conversation style.
- slowmovintarget 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - aguaviva 2y ago
    The "but" is a denial of what preceded it. I think you misread me there. It wasn't a denial at all. It was simply saying: whatever the state of the mess -- weird, distorted narratives about the mess don't help us out of the mess. And in fact are a huge part of the mess. Exactly as you put it.
rootusrootus 2y ago
> In my neighborhood This is one of those moments I wish people had a way (I guess you could just add it in the notes) to mark their HN account with a region. Are you in the UK, maybe? The immigration issue sounds very different in the EU vs US, even if many of the sound bites rhyme.

munksbeer 2y ago

You're commenting from a US perspective but the person you're responding to was commenting from a European perspective. In Europe (including the UK), we have seen an enormous surge in asylum seekers and they're housed, fed, etc, with tax money. I believe the latest annual figure is around £5bn, which is not insignificant. I don't know what the solution is, as an immigrant to the UK myself I find it difficult to judge or comment, but you need to keep in mind that Europe has a welfare model quite different from your US. We typically pay more taxes and have a higher expectation of public services. When those services are deteriorating, people look for someone to blame. Immigrants are an easy target. In reality, it is much more to do with the aging population and fewer in the workforce, but that doesn't mean that we're also not paying a lot of money for asylum seekers.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
youngtaff 2y ago
The UK costs are due to the previous government not processing asylum seekers and other irregular immigrants in a timely manner and also the fact all the processing, care etc is outsourced to profit making private companies We’re generally only talking about 50,000 people a year coming in via these routes Of course Brexit didn’t help with the policing of it all either
com2kid 2y ago
> In Europe (including the UK), we have seen an enormous surge in asylum seekers and they're housed, fed, etc, with tax money. I believe the latest annual figure is around £5bn, which is not insignificant. That number sounds big, but for some perspective my city (Seattle) is spending more than that to build light rail tracks to one particular (not that very dense!) neighborhood. 0.42% of the UK budget is spent on helping people who have had everything in their lives ripped away. People who have watched family members get shot, had their houses destroyed by bombs, and for some, their entire homeland turned into rubble. The UK populace spent decades electing corrupt leaders who purposefully destroyed civic institutions. Of course things are falling apart. Immigrants don't have much to do with that...

aguaviva 2y ago

all the authorized immigrants That should have read "unauthorized", and without the negating particle the rest makes very little sense.