States such as California were allowing them access to Medi-cal, their version of medicaid. Many get free housing- NYC entered into a $980 million dollar contract to house people in hotels.
Federally, no, they aren't getting assistance, but it's all a slush fund as money flows back and forth between local and the federal governments anyway.
California also has, like, the 4th highest GDP in the world. Take complaints about their money mis-management with a grain of salt - of course people from economically failed states like Louisiana and Tennessee are going to tell you California has all these problems. PS - I live in the South.
The US guarantees ER health services regardless of citizenship or ability to pay. They also get free public education (with all the burdens of being non-english speaking).
They pay taxes (in Texas) through gas, property and sales taxes which fund much of the state.
Yes, immigrants are a critical component of several industries like healthcare.
Legal permanent residency/work visas should be easier for skilled workers who want to work in high demand jobs. And all wealthy nations should be more wary of unlimited, unchecked economic migration by poorer populations.
(IOW it's complicated)
I think social media is at least as big a cultural weapon against us, and if I had to choose between deport/imprison a small number of business and political leaders who abuse that weapon or four million undocumented US residents, I would choose the former.
What tangent? pjc50 was responding fairly directly to points in the comment he replied to. Who was in turn replying directly to his comment. Which was a direct reply to the next parent up. Which was expressing surprise to immigration being present at all in a root level response to a story about UK use of VPNs.
Veen made a comment about US ICE suggesting that political positions limiting immigration are a backdoor to human rights violations as a matter of fact, and suggesting that immigration has nothing to do with the push for more surveillance.
My comment was responding to that and to pjc50's reply.
Veen was in reply to pjc50, who also did not: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44712105 — "they've seen US ICE snatch squads and internment camps and decide that they want some of that here."
("here" can be read as either being "the UK" or "all places outside the USA", but the one place it can't be read as is "the US" because the US already has that).
• Los Angeles County General Relief (“GR”, undocumented adult) $2,348/yr
221 × 12 ≈ $2 650; actual monthly household max 2 adults = $442 (LAC DPSS 2023 schedule). Family with kids rarely gets full GR cash, so book 50 % = $2 348.
-------- Food
• CalFresh for 3 citizen kids $8,940
Max allotment for 3 children household = $780 / mo × 12.
Housing-subsidy value (Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher)
• Local Payment Standard (3-br in Central LA, 2024) 28,640
FMR $2 655 / mo × 12. Actual voucher covers 26 600 after utility allowance; market-value differential is tax-free.
-------- Medical care (only the kids qualify under “Restricted Medi-Cal”):
Is this actually what a typical immigrant is getting, or did you just pull this straight out of your ass? Who is actually getting these benefits to this degree? Do we not understand that it's very difficult to apply for a lot of these and most people don't know how to do it?
Also, elephant in the room: California has the 4th highest GDP in the world. Clearly, what they're doing is working. So well that they provide what, 1.5x more federal dollars than they take?
I mean, Louisiana doesn't provide jack shit to nobody. And how's their economy holding up? Anybody check on them recently? Last I checked, despite providing fuck-all, Louisiana isn't even breaking even with federal dollars, let alone touching California's 1.5x ratio.
