One of the most laughable (and vile) arguments the Left makes in favor of illegal immigration is that deporting illegals would mean we'd have no one to take care of our lawns or pick our produce and that the cost of services would go up.
This is no different than the argument some pro-slavery people used in the 1800s -- getting rid of slave labor would make things more expensive. It's not only a slightly racist argument, but one that is completely out of touch with the real world.
He’s getting dragged for this but in fact deporting millions of immigrants would make lots of things more expensive and force people to substitute home labor for market transactions. If those people preferred to paint their own house and mow their own lawns, they’d be doing it. https://t.co/PPx06MXq3F
— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) November 25, 2024
This is so incredibly privileged it's almost breathtaking. McArdle lives in Washington, D.C. according to her X bio -- so she's probably used to rich Leftists using cheap labor to do things the vast majority of Americans do on their own.
So I pointed out how horrible this argument is:
Exactly same argument the pro-slavery crowd made in the 1800s. https://t.co/OdcxC6OWKi
— Amy Curtis 🇮🇱 (@RantyAmyCurtis) November 25, 2024
And Megan did not like that.
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I’ve gotten multiple versions of this clapback, as if the problem with slavery was excessively cheap cotton, rather than the fact that people were involuntarily kept in chattel servitude. https://t.co/QSUGgZ0481
— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) November 25, 2024
Perhaps the reason you've gotten this clapback multiple times is because there's a point to it. You're arguing for a permanent underclass whose sole purpose is to make your life easier while saving you a few bucks. Forgive me if my heart doesn't bleed for you if you have to clean your own toilet or mow your own lawn (or pay more to have someone else do it).
You don’t drag slavery into it unless you’re trying to discredit the other side’s argument with an emotional appeal to one of the worst atrocities in human history.
— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) November 25, 2024
This is adorable. As if we're not going to hear a million sob stories from the media about how 'mean' it is to uproot illegal immigrants and separate families. In fact, they've already begun. It's funny how we don't hear laments about 'separating families' when Americans who commit crimes are separated from their families and put in prison.
Illegal immigrants are (D)ifferent, however.
The argument that deporting illegal immigrants will make services more expensive is also an emotional appeal, and one that reeks of snobbery. Someone like Megan may have to pay more to have her toilet cleaned, and she wants us to know she's offended by that. She argued it's different from slavery because the immigrants get paid and can leave any time they want.
This ignores the fact that there is a significant amount of human trafficking, threats of deportation that would separate families from employers, and an egregious abuse of underpaid workers who often function outside of employment laws and safety regulations.
But if Megan wants an argument bereft of 'emotional appeal', fine. Let's do this. First, the cost to taxpayers. Illegal immigration is costing American taxpayers $150+ billion per year. In comparison, Donald Trump's border wall cost $6 billion and was killed by the Biden-Harris administration.
The reality is, there were more illegal immigrants brought into the country than jobs created in October, and of the jobs the Biden-Harris administration created, many of them are part-time without benefits. Back in March, I told you how net job gains benefited illegal immigrants and not Americans.
In New York City, 75% of criminal arrests are illegal immigrants. One of the assistants to Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg was recently attacked and robbed by an illegal immigrant criminal. Speaking of criminals, as of July 21, there were over 660,000 illegal immigrants with criminal histories on the ICE national docket -- including over 13,000 convicted murderers.
One of those criminals -- Jose Ibarra -- was just convicted on ten counts for the murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley. I, along with my colleagues, covered that case extensively. Including the opening statements from the prosecution that detailed how Laken fought Ibarra for 18 minutes while he tried to rape her and then killed her by bashing her head on a rock.
Laken Riley is only one of countless victims of these crimes. Jocelyn Nungaray was 12-years-old when she was raped and murdered by Venezuelan illegal immigrants. Rachel Morin lived in Maryland and was a mother of 5 who was the second Maryland woman killed by an illegal immigrant. In 2021, a 13-year-old girl in New York was raped by an Ecuadorian illegal immigrant. A 14-year-old girl in Indiana was kidnapped and trafficked by five illegals. In Denver, another 14-year-old girl was raped by an illegal (while the mayor of the city vows to go to the mattresses to prevent deportations).
While there are many illegal immigrants who live here peacefully, the fact remains: they flouted America's immigration laws. They are all -- to varying degrees -- criminals by the reality they circumvented our immigration process. There is no other nation in the world that would tolerate such blatant ignoring of its immigration laws.
There's a saying: chickens come home to roost. What's happening now and how difficult the task of deporting millions of illegals will be is the fruit of decades of negligence, inaction, and outright willful ignorance of immigration laws. It hurts more now because politicians -- Republican and Democrat -- have let the problem grow for so long.
That, too, is not an excuse for further inaction or mass amnesty. It demonstrates how we never should have let it get this far.
Despite all of this, despite the economic and criminal realities of illegal immigration, the Left -- who are quick to demand gun control to 'save one life' after a mass shooting -- have decided that the luxury of having a lawn they don't have to cut (or saving a few bucks by paying an illegal immigrant) is more important.
That, too, is an atrocity, Megan.
