There was a lady that used to work for me, she grew up in a pretty tough neighborhood in San Antonio. She told me about a group of guys there that both used and dealt drugs. They were harmless for the most part and actually got on well with everybody . . . but they weren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer if you know what I mean.
One day, they are laying around the house enjoying some of the fruits of their labor when another, more aggressive group of guys burst in with guns drawn, stole their money and stole their drugs. Nobody was hurt but the guys were shaken - as you can imagine. So they did what seemed like the natural thing to do when you are robbed . . . they called 911 and reported that a home invasion and armed robbery had just occurred . . . and then sat back down and waited for the police to arrive.
As they heard the sirens approach it finally dawned on them what was going to happen when the police got there and they had to explain what had been stolen. Two guys got out the back window as the cars pulled up but a couple of the other guys were caught.
So here’s the deal, one of the points of contention during all the hoopla about health care reform is the insistence by just about everybody on both sides of the aisle that illegal immigrants must be excluded from any sort of access or coverage.
Personally, I can’t imagine why someone's nationality should have any effect on the health care that they receive but that’s another post for a later date.
Anyway, back to the hoopla.
Let’s pretend that I’m a citizen of another country living illegally in the United States without the proper visa or with no visa all. Do you really think that I would go to a Federal Government agency and try to either purchase coverage or get any sorts of benefits from that agency? Seriously?
Remember those guys up in the beginning of the story? That’s who would try . . . and then they would be arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and sent back to their native country. Isn’t that what so many of the folks who are beating the “no services to illegal immigrants” drum want?
Here’s another thing to consider on the topic of illegal immigrants. My intuition tells me that most folks working here illegally probably work for a legal citizen of the United States. That person is dodging their own tax responsibility. They are taking jobs from legal citizens and giving them to workers who will work for just about anything and under any conditions. That person is making a very loud statement that the only thing that matters is their own gain at the expense of their country, their fellow citizens and the citizens of other countries who will work for wages paid “off the books”.
When a person breaks the law there is usually another crook somewhere up or down the food chain just as culpable . . .
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