Editorial: America's homeless need same political clout as illegal immigrants
Published in Op Eds
One thing seems to be lost in the border crisis/illegal immigration/migrant surge debate: When government needs to find money, it will.
Granted, taxpayers have ultimately covered the enormous bill to pay for housing and caring for migrants around the country thanks to the Biden administration’s “come on in” policies. But short of Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed vaccine push and subsequent COVID programs, when was the last time government made such a concerted effort to find solutions?
Imagine if the political will to welcome undocumented migrants no matter the cost was there to tackle America’s homeless problem pre-surge?
Gov. Maura Healey is hardly alone in having to tackle waves of migrants crossing our border, but our state’s welcome wagon offers a snapshot of the kind of assistance offered en masse to this population.
The Healey administration selected host communities around the state to house shelters and launched a pro bono program with immigration organizations to provide services for families at large shelters.
Healey rolled out work authorization clinics in emergency family shelters, formed corporate partnerships to connect those in shelters with on-the-job training and skills development and coordinated with regional workforce boards to connect shelter residents with jobs.
Though the program ended recently, New York City had been providing migrants staying in city-funded hotels with pre-paid cards to buy their own food and other necessities, as CBS News reported. The city spent $3.6 million on debit cards for about 2,600 migrant families who were staying in shelters without kitchen access.
Around the country, municipalities have provided health care, food, shelter and services to handle the migrant surge.
But there were people in need well before open borders drew in millions more. There have been homeless families with children attending school and returning to a shelter across the nation. Where was the massive federal push to help them attain the American Dream?
The organizations who’ve done, and continue to do, yeoman’s work to connect America’s homeless individuals and families with resources would no doubt love a slice of this massive pie.
But non-immigrant homeless people don’t have political clout.
The National Review cited a Center for Immigration Studies report in October which found the net effect of increases in both legal and illegal immigration in the 2020 Census shifted 17 House seats and 17 Electoral College votes, resulting in a net gain of 14 seats in Blue States — 10 seats shifting from red states and four from battleground states.
In part because districts with high percentages of noncitizens tend to vote Democrat, “of the 24 districts where one in five adults is not an American citizen, 20 were won by a Democrat in 2022. In contrast, the Democrat won in just five of the 54 districts where 98 percent of adults are citizens.”
This helps explain the administration’s weak-tea efforts to get would-be immigrants to “just not come” to the U.S.
All of this is a teachable moment. If the political will exists to shelter and care for waves of illegal immigrants, then it can be mustered to tackle the homeless problems that have beset the country for years.
Everyone should have a home and no child should grow up wondering where they’ll sleep at night, regardless of how their parents may vote.
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