Op/Ed: The Migrant Crisis Will Never End Until We Shut Off The Incentive Faucet
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New York City Mayor Eric Adams defeatedly announced that “help is not on its way” after meeting with the White House this past Friday.
“I left with the cold reality that help is not on the way in the immediate future. It is going to be, at this moment, it’s going to be up to New Yorkers and this administration to continue to navigate this challenge that we’re facing,” he told a gaggle of reporters at the end of an unrelated press conference.
Thursday marked the 10th time Hizzoner [AKA, the mayor. I hate that the New York Post still writes this] was in DC to seek help with the crush of asylum seekers that has overwhelmed New York City’s shelter system and led to unpopular budget cuts.
The migrant crisis is showing the deep crisis of management plaguing NYC, Washington, and the country in general. As new arrivals stream in from all corners of the globe — Africa, China, and South America — New Yorkers are continually being undercut to pander to the Open Borders progressive cartel.
We are beaten over the head by their hammer of “compassion.” If we don’t shower migrants with tax dollars, we are called bigots. If the city, and our country, was run properly in the first place, Americans would be far more open to the idea of helping others from less developed and struggling nations.
After all, immigrants’ contributions to our city cannot be denied. But, this isn’t the 19th Century anymore. Whatever shared culture we had has been replaced by a secular, extremely divided, metropolitan sprawl. In recent times, we have only decayed and become more chaotic. We aren’t doing the simple and necessary maintenance (let alone improvements) of fundamental sectors of city living: public transit, crime, traffic, fiscal responsibility, etc.
We do not have the engine to properly intake migrants as we once had. We can’t even take care of our own. This is what upsets New Yorkers to no end.
The progressives create the mess of the migrant crisis, funded by taxpaying citizens, and when things don’t work out — as we’re seeing before our eyes — they blame each other and pass the buck. As they do so, we become the ultimate losers.
A post from Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican representing Staten Island and South Brooklyn, showed that the City — via contractors and nonprofits — is providing migrants with a slew of amenities on our dime.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F81b40f13-7f06-4dbf-b947-e7b78c511db8_827x592.jpeg)
With incentives like these, the risk-to-reward ratio for so-called migrants is immense. Crossing the border is dangerous, costly, and arduous, but the smorgasbord of material benefits waiting for them (on top of the already enticing prospect of residing in America) is more than worth it.
Though I’m glad the congresswoman is drawing more awareness to what’s really going on, the migrants themselves are well aware of what America — and New York in particular — has to offer them. Journalist Ali Bradley released a short interview with a 20-year-old Moroccan migrant named Os (Short for Osama. You’d think that name would have fallen out of popularity) at the southern border.
Os: “If America doesn’t want me, I’m here for America… I respect America, I respect American rules.”
Ali: “So you’re saying you respect our rules, but you didn’t follow the rules to get in.”
Os: “…It’s first mistake… first and last… First, I’m going to New York City to my friend to help me for something, and I will buy new bicycle, and I will work Uber.”
Ali: “How are you going to buy a bicycle?”
Os: “I have my money. I have my credit card… When I was 5 years old, I feel myself, I’m American guy because I love Michael Jackson, Nirvana — do you know Nirvana?”
Ali: “Of course, I’m from Seattle. Grunge. Yeah.”
Os: “I like Eminem, Tupac, Travis Scott.”
Ali: “So you consider yourself American because you like our music culture?”
Os: “The best is Lana Del Ray. Oh, she’s beautiful.”
He goes on to say he will do any kind of job, even working with trash. Os and the migrants around him agree that they’re not worried about finding work, that if they could find a job in Morocco, it would surely be easier in America.
Os: “I’m ready to do anything for America. I’m here for work, I’m here for America… Thank you Joe Biden for everything. We love you Joe Biden.”
It’s like a fever dream. There’s even something likeable about Os, as many have commented on. These aren’t explicitly bad people, in the conventional sense. And, if you were them, and the American government offered up such a juicy incentive package with a fast-track to permanent residency, you’d probably take it too if you were young, willing, and able.
I know the populist rhetoric is something like, “the elites try and divide the people so they fight against each other, instead of going after the true enemy, etc.” There is a fundamental truth there, but it’s an incomplete analysis.
As Os shows, most of the “migrants,” are not fleeing acute oppression or chaos. They are simply circumventing the system because they don’t want to go the legal route, which is expensive and time-consuming. The migrants aren’t all bad people, yet they are still the enemy because they drain your wallet for their own benefit. And they know it. They know exactly what’s happening, but the offer is too good to pass up, so they don’t care. And why should they care? The most fundamental human instinct is self-preservation. They care about themselves more than they care about us. Makes perfect sense.
But, do we care about ourselves more than we care about them? We might say yes individually, but American policy says otherwise. Progressives weaponize our own compassion against us. They force our hand to care more about others than ourselves.
As much as the progressive elites deserve our contempt, so do their base, which include the migrants. If it were up to progressive Dems, they would be allowed to vote in local elections. This would have happened last year if not for the State Supreme Court ruling against them. There is zero doubt who migrants would vote for if they had the opportunity.
Weak pleas telling would-be migrants to stay in their own countries will not work. In October, Adams went down to South America to apparently try to discourage more from coming here. Vice President Kamala Harris previously told migrants “do not come.”
They had to know that such messages are useless while keeping the incentive faucet running full blast. These messages were instead intended for the American public, to make it seem like the situation is “out of their hands,” despite their “best efforts.”
The faucet needs to be shut off, immediately. I don’t know if all the migrants who’ve arrived in recent times should all be deported, but it shouldn’t be off the table. Maybe there should be some kind of probationary path to citizenship dependent on cultural assimilation — some kind of guarantee they won’t vote in the same policies that brought them here to begin with. That’s a stretch.
We have already generated second- and third-order effects from importing unvetted people from all corners of the globe: black markets, human trafficking, increased criminality, cultural incompatibilities, loss of taxes. All of these are built-in, slow-burn effects that we will begin see manifest in the coming years.
With that in mind, priority number one is to turn off all incentives. Easier said than done, but that’s the first requisite step. Any attempt at fixing the problem without that is fruitlessly scooping water out of a quickly flooding boat.
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