The government cannot provide financial support to anyone without a social security number. It is a very serious crime for anyone to use a fraudulent SSN to get support. I expect governments provide food, medical care and temporary shelter without asking for SSNs or even names. Private groups such as Habitat are free to give goods and services to anyone.
Why are undocumented people living in a Habitat for Humanity house? Aren't there enough needy citizens who can use the assistance?
4
The fear of undocumented, or simply worried new immigrants, was an issue in the Santa Rosa CA area fires. My wife volunteered at a local shelter, and when FEMA came in fear of being identified by the federal government and the same getting into people's business scared many out of the shelters they had been using. It was saddening. Senior citizen and children were affected. This was in the hey day of the Trump administration media crackdown on immigration.
1
@paul. They were not so afraid when they entered this country illegally or they just got over it.
15
Close the borders.....give the governments south of the border 90 days to implement a national referendum on joining the USA and whoever refuses gets all their landsmen back. These governments are corrupt and these countries are failed states. The only ones who would be hurt by integration with the US would be the corrupt kleptocrats. The US taxpayer has to take care of their population overload but gets none of the resources. It's called Manifest Destiny...We can build another California. We will have room for millions of Asian and African refugees.
5
This may be a good time to catch them and send them back. They came here illegally - rescue them give them aid and all the help they need to go back the their country. Unfortunte that our tax dollars will be used to help these people and tske away money that could have gone to true Americans but its humane.
13
Yes it's the people of color with no power, no money, no rights what so ever who have walked across continents with nothing but their souls that are destroying white privilege in America, or is it the plague of White Selective-Ignorance? A country of fools fooling themselves; that is America today.
2
My family tried for 10 years to get a Habitat for Humanity house where we live. I guess we should have burned our I.D.s and birth certificates and become undocumented before we applied.
14
Lucy, an illegal immigrant, has a house built for her by Habitat for Humanity, a house many of our homeless vets and other homeless American citizens would be happy to have.
As for not being able to read the warnings written in English, it would be nice if people who have been living here for many years would bother to learn English. There is also Google language translation. No excuses.
15
Is this even something that should be considered if you are here illegally then you do not deserve to use the resources that are provided by the government. Those resources are for use by the citizens of the USA not criminals which illegal immigrants are. Then to have the nerve to complain that immigration officers are helping people during the storm is an insult to law enforcement why should these hard working people who are risking their lives to help people have to hide who they work for because it might be scary for illegal immigrants. No one is holding you here feel free to go home and burden your own government. People seem to think they somehow have the right to come here and disregard our laws then
Complain when they don't get whatever they want. We must take care of our citizens first
17
In Arizona the undocumented don’t live in constant fear, especially since Sheriff Joe was booted out. Their kids go to the public schools and get free lunches. Most of these kids do not hide their status, and good natured joking about it is welcome.
The breadwinners do lots of driving around, mowing lawns, trimming trees, and cleaning houses and caring for children. If they pay the water bill they deal with the city. If there is a health crisis, they have to deal with the emergency room. Then there are city pools and permits for birthday parties in city parks. Heck, some collect signatures to get candidates on ballots and some register their citizen neighbors and encourage them to vote.
I am sure there is fear, but not that much. People who cross the Rio Grande or endless miles of desert aren’t weenies. They made it from their home towns to the middle of nowhere in North Carolina. When it comes to floodwaters, it’s just more of the same. My money is on them.
4
No, illegal immigrants are not entitled to government assistance - regardless of the storm - and should be deported.
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@Sharon. Lucy, in her Habitat for Humanity home should be deported so that a homeless or poor American citizen can live in that house.
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In a word...NO! An undocumented alien should not seek any shelter wherein they can be identified. ICE does not recognize the basic humanity of saving the lives of our brothers and sisters in distress.
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@dearworld2. ICE’s job is to protect the lives of American citizens.
8
A word to those expressing resentment toward those here illegally. If you act recklessly, causing them to drown in floodwaters, you have committed manslaughter. The homicide laws don’t differentiate legal immigrants and illegals. If you recklessly cause someone’s death, you go to jail whatever their status.
2
@michjas. If illegals don’t follow instructions to leave for their own safety in a natural disaster, that is on them, no one else.
10
" Hurricane Florence forced them to think about whether seeking government resources like shelter, food or other aid would help them get through the storm, or put them at greater risk."
What greater risk could there be than risking one's life, and the life of one's children?!
2
For those protesting illegal immigrants - economists, who research numbers and not color, determined at last count that illegal immigrants contribute a net positive 7 billion dollars to the US economy. How? Many pay taxes through illegal tax ids but can't collect social security, many pay property taxes, and all pay sales tax buying goods and services.
Red states, on the other hand, are net takers from my state and from other northern states (and most of us don't complain about illegal immigrants): Mississippi received $2.13 for every tax dollar the state sent to Washington in 2015, according to a report by the Rockefeller Institute of Government. West Virginia received $2.07, Kentucky got $1.90 and South Carolina got $1.71. Meanwhile, New Jersey received 74 cents in federal spending for tax every dollar the state sent to Washington. New York received 81 cents, Connecticut received 82 cents and Massachusetts received 83 cents. In addition, in North and South Carolina, the teen pregnancy rate is more than twice what my home state of Connecticut's is-and the cost of teen pregnancy and childbirth in our country is $9.4 billion per year.
NC has got pig waste poisoning its land, water, and people, and all of our air, right now from flooding because the GOP deregulates to save companies near-term dollars instead of legislating to capture methane in tanks and use it as fuel like Europe does.
Fix your real problems and leave desperate people alone.
2
@common sense advocate. Illegals cost this country 120 billion a year. The 7 billion you say that illegals contribute doesn’t come close to what they cost this country - the middle class American tax payer.
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@common sense advocate
Not too many years ago, this very newspaper did an in-depth exposé on how illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America had usurped hundreds and hundreds of pork plant processing jobs from African American citizens....because they accepted a demeaning fraction of the salary for the exact same type and amount of work. The net effect was devastating on huge communities of people whose ancestors were forced to build out most of all those "red states" as slaves. Imagine the fury felt by those African American communities at having zero recourse, zero help from their own government in preventing such a disgrace.
We are a nation of laws! We all should be demanding the deportation of the millions and millions (!) of illegal immigrants who thinks its acceptable to lie and cheat about something as fundamental a your nationality and citizenship.
Say YES to legal immigration from all corners of the globe! Say NO to illegal immigration!
Hows that for common sense advocacy?
17
Status is status, storm is a storm. Safety of the people should come first no matter what especially in a case of a storm.
3
A Habitat for Humanity house? The "undocumented" sure know how to obtain free or low-cost benefits in this country.
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"As Storms Loom, Some Immigrant Families Wonder: Is It Safe to Seek Help?"
~ No immigrant family is wondering that. Only families who illegally immigrated here are wondering that.
"The police were everywhere, Lucy said. 'You feel fear from head to toe.' "
~Lucy and her husband are in this country illegally. They are egregiously breaking our laws. They are NOT outrageous laws. Where is our self-respect as a society? As a nation?
"Federal immigration authorities are more often targeting for deportation people who do not have criminal records..."
~Anybody who is in this country illegally has a de facto criminal record. Why be obtuse around this issue? Its almost childish.
We are a nation of laws. Why are all these articles written as if we are nation of sentiment?
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@lowereastside
And just who is hiring these " illegals"?
Big corporations like hog farmers that's who . You cannot blame people for trying to survive . No human should be denied help because of their country of origin.
And btw a human being can't be " illegal"
Only criminal acts can.
2
@lowereastside
You write of "a nation of laws" but what laws are you talking about? We are a nation of laws. Our laws are clear that people are presumed innocent of crime until found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. Civil immigration status is not a de facto criminal record - it is your attempt to subvert the Constitution and declare yourself judge, jury and executioner. You want to live above the law, surrounded by your own sentiment. Joe Arpaio has a de facto criminal record. Why be obtuse about it?
1
@Carla. The unions that represented the workers on these hog farms, meat processing plants, etc. etc., were destroyed decades ago and then these greedy owners hired illegals for wages no American citizen would or should accept.
The employers of these illegals should be imprisoned as well as fined. They have been heavily fined in the past to no avail (recent NYT article).