The country isn't like a life boat stranded at sea where we have to ration our resources and rescuing another survivor is choice to run out of supplies faster. This way of thinking needs to die.

Immigration - legal and illegal - high skill and low skill - are net positives to the economy and even our social safety-net programs. American citizens come out way on top in this whole deal by far.

And if you think giving immigrants a few bucks to get started is expensive, it's a pittance next to the costs of mass detention and deportation. They increased ICE's budget by 15x and it's now the most well funded law enforcement agency in the world.

It's true that border crossings surged in the Biden years. The apprehension rate however, was the same as Trump's. The vast majority of illegal border crossings end up in ejection or deportation. Over the whole 4 year term I think we have something around 2.5 million people who were actually released into the country while their cases go through the immigration courts.

And there's some research out there that suggests the immigration surge helped stave off a post-covid recession and softened inflation relative to the rest of the world

Now under Trump, we're projected to have the yearly first decline in population in ages.

The problem with legal immigration is misuse rather than unfunded liabilities. My point is simply - put it to a vote that the US will accept a certain limited number of people who walk across the border every year and the states will be required to fund them. Codify it into law if that’s what needs to happen. Or maybe we just need better labor reform for transitory foreign labor like the Arabian gulf nations. Make it a law so that citizens are aware of impacts - socially and financially.

The US admits 1million legal immigrants every year. This is in addition to people on a valid work visa and folks who are illegally here.