You don't understand why people see a difference between humans and trade goods?
While that sounds overly excessive, the UK at a fifth of the population size is spending 6.5, billion pounds a year to encourage illegal immigrants to come into the country. I understand it's not a perfect comparison but I think it's worth pointing out that there are far stupider and more expensive ways that other countries are dealing with the same situation.
Can you expand on this for non UK readers?
In the past few years there have been huge numbers of illegal immigrants abusing that system. And successive governments have absolutely no strategy for dealing with it. Hence record numbers of illegal immigration and a huge bill.
Really the whole situation is painfully dumb, but the politicians and civil servants couldn't care because they don't suffer from the consequences of their own incompetence.
The real question here, though, is where does the 6.5 billion pound number come from? Who is quoting it, what's their justification for that figure, and does that give a real and accurate account of any "drain" on the UK economy?
( eg: of that amount how much goes into the pockets of "illegal immigrants" and stays there (or is transferred out of the UK), how much goes into the pockets of UK shopkeepers and landlords and recirculates within the UK economy )
The big picture on economic flow activity really is important in these debates, the US is facing one cost of immigration enforcement being the loss of cheap labour in construction, hospitality, and agriculture, with knock on effects - these costs over and above the costs of funding a massive and unaccountable para military force.
- Food and Nutrition Service (USDA) (~$142B)
- NIH (~$47B)
- Tenant-Based Rental Assistance / Housing Choice Vouchers (HUD) (~$36B)
- Pell Grant Program (~$34.5B)
- Federal Highway Administration (DOT) (~$62.8B)
- Environmental Protection Agency (~$41B, might be out of date)
- Department of Energy (~$58B)
- Department of State (~$58B)
- Department of Housing and Urban Development (~$62B)
- Department of Labor (~$98B)
Comparing it to national militaries is a bit silly IMHO, since as the world’s largest economy the US federal government spends heavily across almost every sector.
mcphage•1h ago