August 21, 2023

New York City is paying hotels up to $300 a day to house migrants who are not even legally in the United States.

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The city is diverting city resources from essential services for which the city’s residents have paid taxes to people who are not in any way entitled to them. “Some of New York City’s struggling hotels are charging the city premium rates to provide emergency housing for migrants—even as the city slashes services to pay the bills” (emphasis is mine). In other words, illegal migrants are being permitted to steal from New York’s taxpayers, and with the city’s government as willful accomplices. At what point do New York City’s workers and taxpayers push back by refusing to pay these costs?

Refugees, Immigrants, and Migrants

The Left will doubtlessly bleat that “racists” are against migrants and asylum seekers, and also cite the New Testament parable of no room at the inn. One who has the means to do so should extend hospitality to struggling strangers, but not if one lacks the means to provide for one’s own family and guests (i.e. citizens and lawful immigrants). We have veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and high suicide rates who are not getting the help they need even though they served our country. We have homeless citizens, and Code Blue alerts in winter to get them into some kind of temporary shelter which does not cost anywhere near $300 a day; the communal housing plus a hot meal is probably closer to $20 or $30. We have children in failing schools, most of which are in failed Deep Blue-governed cities, and money squandered on illegal migrants is money stolen from these people to whom our society has an obligation. Do these homeless Americans in New York City look like they are being lodged in $300 hotel rooms?

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There are meanwhile three classes of people who enter the United States; two are desirable and one is undesirable.

  • A refugee is fleeing an oppressive regime, like the Jews whom Franklin Delano Roosevelt, God the Father in the Democrat Trinity (with Obama as the Son and Lyndon Johnson the Holy Ghost) sent back to Nazi Germany to be murdered. Vietnamese “boat people” who fled the Communists, Afghan women who don’t want the Taliban to throw acid in their faces for going to school, and Iranian woman who don’t want to be raped in Evin Prison for refusing to wear burqas are all refugees. The same goes for Hong Kong Chinese who don’t want to live in Xinnie the Pooh’s surveillance society, and Ukrainians who don’t want to be ruled by Vladimir Putin. 
    • Refugees whom Franklin Roosevelt didn’t manage to send back to Nazi Germany to be murdered included Albert Einstein, Hans Bethe, John von Neumann, Leo Szilard, James Franck, Edward Teller, Rudolf Peierls, and Klaus Fuchs. Enrico Fermi was meanwhile a refugee from Fascist Italy. This is why the civilized world got the atomic bomb and the Axis didn’t. When a country turns into an outhouse (the family-friendly version of the word Donald Trump used), as Germany did in 1933, the best people are usually the first to leave.
  • An immigrant is somebody with job skills who is willing to learn English if he or she doesn’t already know it, and wants to Americanize by adopting our national values and culture. Unless we’re Native Americans, we are immigrants or descendants of immigrants. Canada, our liberal neighbor next door, requires immigrants to know English or French, and may give bonus points for both, and also to have money or job skills. Canada does not allow migrants who lack these things to leech off its generous social welfare programs, although it does welcome refugees, Ukrainians, and Hong Kong Chinese.
  • A migrant is somebody who just walks across the border the same way a burglar walks into your house, and acts as if he owns the place. Here is a video of adult migrants in Hungary throwing away food that is given to them by the police, although the children do appear grateful for the aid. Citizens and legal immigrants in Texas feel unsafe in their own neighborhoods because of swarms of illegal migrants. The bottom line is that these migrants would not come if they did not expect to be given more than emergency food, shelter, and medical care. We don’t let people starve or freeze on our streets, nor do the Hungarians allow people to starve or freeze on theirs either, but taxpayers have no duty to give them more than basic subsistence until they can be returned to their countries of origin. The fact that New York City taxpayers are being forced to carry them shows meanwhile that they are either not working or, if they are, are not earning enough to live in a pay-more-get-less venue like New York.

If people are really seeking asylum, however, resources should be provided for them to do so—possibly through offices right on the border. Although consulates cannot offer asylum, they can offer other forms of protection to people who are really fleeing oppression. We would be ashamed to repeat Franklin Roosevelt’s behavior by sending refugees back to countries where they will be oppressed or killed, or by putting American citizens into concentration camps as Roosevelt did with people of Japanese ancestry. Refugees, yes; immigrants, yes; migrants, no.

This Needs to be an Issue in 2024

It is no surprise that the Democrat Left wants to reinstate the state and local tax (SALT) deduction. This will force working Americans to help carry wealthy elitists in pay-more-get-less cities like New York and Los Angeles, as the elitists in question pay far more than the standard deduction in state, local, and property taxes. If you want to live in a $2.4 million trailer in California on your own money, that’s up to you but don’t ask me or others to help carry your income and property taxes. If you want to vote for left-wing Democrats in New York City who need to raise taxes to carry illegal migrants, you go ahead and do that but don’t try to get me or any other taxpayers to carry your bad decisions. This is a strong argument to “use your head and vote Red” in November 2024.

People who buy goods and services need to realize, meanwhile, that the cost of squandering billions of dollars on illegal migrants, as well as New York’s astronomical rents, prices in general, and property taxes, is built into the price of everything that originates there. Do New York lawyers charge up to $1000 an hour because they’re really better lawyers, or is it because they have to cover sky-high office rental costs and living costs in general?

Are you planning a conference? The fact that NYC has stuffed its hotels full of illegal migrants means hotel space will command premium prices if you can find it at all, and intelligent employers will be unwilling to cover these costs for business travel. Schedule your conference somewhere else, maybe in a flyover country small town with hotel shuttles to the nearest airport. Online conferences eliminate travel and lodging costs completely.