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SEIFFE:  A Warning For Immigrants

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

By Ralf Seiffe

As you come across our borders, please be aware that there is a trap, set by government agents, waiting for you. This isn’t a two-layer fence engineered by the Border Patrol or an ICE raid by agents bearing clipboards full of subpoenas. It isn’t one laid out by the police, the FBI or any other enforcement agency but one set by friendly men and women who sincerely believe they are trying to help you. But beware, if you fall into their trap, you’ll wish you never had come to America. 

Despite what you may have heard in the old country, the United States is a fully-developed, post-industrial welfare state. If you understand this and have come for the unearned benefits our society offers, you are already trapped and may not be redeemable. But, if you are here for the same reason that began attracting immigrants since Columbus’ third voyage, welcome, but be very afraid of the welfare perils waiting for you. 

The American interpretation of the welfare state requires the government to identify a class of beneficiaries--victims--and create a program designed to eliminate their complaint. The problem is that it takes great effort to raise the issue in the public’s mind, convince the legislature to fund the "remedy" and to create the bureaucracy to administer the benefits. If the problem is solved, all that effort is wasted and, presumably, the program’s workers and managers need to find other work. 

This creates a formidable disincentive. Bureaucrats are just as rational as the next person and recognize that effectively solving the problem will upset the status quo so they have no reason to really remedy their clients’ problem. In other words, the bureaucrat’s comfort depends on the misery of his beneficiary. 

If your tired, poor and hungry find this hard to believe, think about some of the "problems" the welfare state has set out to fix. Public housing comes to mind. After 50 years of tolerating conditions that would rightfully lodge criminal complaints against private landlords, the Chicago Housing Authority admitted defeat and demolished the high rises that had provided patronage and contracts for years. Who benefited? Certainly not those living in the drug-infested, burned out buildings. That was clear a generation before they were razed but keeping them was better for the bureaucrats. So that’s what happened--the managers exposed their clients to murder, rape, addiction and immolation to protect their sinecure and pension. 

Here’s another example. Bilingual education was supposed to be a compassionate accommodation for children who’s primary language was not English. But, can there be any doubt that the primary effect of segregating children from their new environment retards their assimilation into the Great Melting Pot? Or, that it permanently diminishes their prospects?  Nevertheless, there is a constituency of educators who are comfortable accepting the funding for bilingual programs regardless of the effect on the children. According to the Champion.org, Jeanne Bode makes $441,000 per year teaching Spanish to middle school students in Cary. I’ll bet she’s comfortable but are the children of Cary any less miserable? 

Finding victims and getting funding is hard work for bureaucrats looking to expand their franchises. That’s why the explosion of immigrants makes such an outstanding target for them. It’s all the better if the immigrants are totally unprepared for life in the United States because they know the less educated and the less experienced an immigrant is, the greater the propensity to fall victim to all sorts of social problems. These range from publicly provided health care, children who "need" bilingual to those who have become victims of "predatory" lenders. This "needs" absolutely breathes life into profligate school boards and innumerate Congressmen and helps explain sanctuary cities and porous borders. 

From the bureaucrats’ point-of-view, each of these pathologies cries out for the heavy hand of government and be assured, new Americans, government agents are standing by to "assist" you. There is a price to pay for that help, however. That first offer to overlook your immigration status will be followed by help to qualify for food stamps and rent subsidies but these will not move you closer to the American dream.  Instead, they will make you more dependent on American largesse and in the end, it’s not you who will benefit, you’ll just be the pawn. 

Expansions of the welfare state require great crises. The serial financial panics and credit crunches of the late Nineteenth Century, the Great Depression, and drug prices four years ago were events that compelled growth of government.  Now, uncontrolled immigration has the same power. So here’s the warning new Americans:  you have a choice.  Either follow your instincts and grab the American dreams with both hands or accept the bureaucrats’ offer and help them build the trap that will control you for generations to come.  Be careful!

Ralf Seiffe advises business start-ups and product launches from Chicago, Illinois and is a political analyst and columnist for the Illinois Leader and Illinois Review.

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