What Is The Plan of Newly-Arrived Illegal Immigrants?

Can some journalist please interview some of the recently arrived illegal immigrants — OK, I’ll accept it even if the journalist chooses to call them “migrants” or “newcomers” — what, exactly, did they think was going to happen once they illegally entered the United States? What was their specific plan?

In a hearing in which illegal immigrants were complaining about the quality and quantity of the goods and services that were being given to them at no charge to the immigrants, a New York City Councilwoman (a Republican, is that allowed in New York City?), asked some questions about what more the illegal immigrants expected. The councilwoman appears to be asking out of frustration that the city couldn’t do more. So her thinking seems to be, "The taxpayers should take care of whoever shows up. It's tragic we can't afford to. But it did cause me to wonder, what exactly do the immigrants think is going to happen when they arrive?” What is their plan? Do they really expect someone else to take care of their every need or want? And for how long? Do they have any concrete plans to become self-sustaining?

“At the shelter, the food, my kids cannot eat the food at the shelter,” said one woman. “They give us two months to stay at the shelter and then you have to go out again with your luggages [sic] and your kids and find another place. It’s very difficult.”

The immigrant expected it to be easy? Until figuratively five minutes ago, did any immigrant anywhere expect an easy time? Immigration has been hard any time, anywhere. Did she expect that when she just showed up without permission in a new country, somebody there was just going to magically take care of not just her needs, but also her wants, for an indefinite length of time? Did she not expect to have to find her own place to live? To find a way to earn money to buy food for her children?

When I was a child, my family lived in a foreign country for a year while my father taught as a visiting professor at a university. So yes, he had a job. But my parents still had to put in an enormous amount of planning to ensure we had a place to live and that my brother and I had schooling arranged. It was still very hard, especially on my mother. My brother and I (ages 5 and 7, who caught onto the local language faster than my mother did) had to help our mother navigate the markets and other necessities of local daily life. The markets were nothing like the stores my mother was used to in California. We had to figure them out. We had to navigate foreign (for us) customs and expectations with our landlord and our neighbors. We had to figure out how to get around the city. Even with the university’s support of my father in his teaching position, we could not have just showed up and expected someone magically to take care of everything.

When my ancestors arrived in the United States in the 19^th century from central Europe and from Ireland, they had relatives with whom they had corresponded and thus knew would take them in for a while, but that they’d have to quickly find employment and their own places to live.

When we lived in southern California more than 25 years ago, we had a non-trivial number of illegal immigrants around. But at that time the illegal immigrants came knowing they had to arrange their own housing, and find some (generally under the table) way to earn money so they could eat. To afford housing they lived ten or twelve people to a one-bedroom apartment, which created lots of local problems. But at least they didn’t start off assuming somebody else was going to take care of them. And they were studiously trying to stay out of sight.

I acknowledge that I am more of a planner than most people. I don’t take a trip without a pretty solid and detailed plan. If I’m flying, I know where I’m staying — with a guaranteed reservation, and know how I’m getting from the airport to the lodging. If I’m driving, I know where I’m going to stop overnight — and have made reservations, and where there will be long gaps in the drive with no gasoline or rest rooms. I’m likely to plan even where, at least approximately, I’m going to stop for lunch. I’ve probably planned ahead at least my first day at the destination – what activities I intend to do, how I’m going to get to them, and what I expect to happen when I get there.

So maybe I don’t appreciate that people can go off on significant adventures with no plan whatsoever. But who, with thinking capacities beyond a six-year-old, just shows up in a foreign country and expects to walk on Easy Street paved with gold using the energy and money of the people of the destination country?

Many of us express annoyance at the explicit and implicit invitations by President Biden for foreigners to just come, and we have generalized complaints about the willingness of government agencies and other organizations to provide help to people who enter the country illegally. We hear illegal immigrants express generalized plans to travel to certain cities. But what exactly are the details of the immigrants’ plan? Specifics. How do they expect to earn money? When do they expect to do that? How do they expect to find housing? When? They know they need to eat. Continuously. How do they expect to do that? Do they really cross the border expecting that “someone” in the U.S.A. will take care of their every need and even want, and make it easy on them?

One gets the impression the recent illegal arrivals seem to think they don’t need to make any plans or arrangements. They just have to show up and they’ll be taken care of. Who and what is giving them that impression?

What do the current immigrants who enter the United States illegally think they are going to be doing the day after their arrival? A week later? A month later? Three months later? A year later?

This is separate from the slaves that are being trafficked who know there is a pimp to whom they are obliged. Senator Ted Cruz describes those as the girls who claim to be heading to their “tio” (uncle). Slaves rely on their pimps.

And not the terrorists, foreign revolution agents, gang members, and others who enter with overt ill intent.

And we know that the pleas of, “they are terrorized individuals fleeing persecution in their home country, so of course they have no plan other than escape” are almost universally false.

I'm asking about the regular people, the ones their advocates are saying we should welcome with open arms.

Maybe some people expect their “coyotes” to take care of them, which the coyotes do not, abandoning their charges as soon as they enter the United States.

But, there are plenty of people who enter the United States illegally on their own volition. I would think they ought to have some plan for life in the United States before they enter. What are the details of their plans and expectations? Can someone ask them?