Taking Away The Bennies

Stephen Green points me at this:

Republican lawmakers in Texas have spent the past year implementing regulatory changes to limit access to services for the estimated 1.7 million illegal immigrants residing in the state, prompting both support from state officials and criticism from activist groups.

A report by the Texas Tribune detailed the steps taken, which include tightening eligibility requirements for occupational licenses, restricting access to commercial driver’s licenses, and limiting who can qualify for in-state tuition at public universities. According to the report, more than 6,400 refugees and DACA recipients have lost their commercial driver’s licenses. Additional restrictions are expected to affect non-citizens working in licensed industries such as construction and medicine.

State officials are also examining the 1982 Supreme Court ruling Plyler v. Doe, which requires public schools to educate non-citizens.

In a sane world, none of this would even be a topic under discussion.  Of course illegal immigrants should not get any kind of state (or federal, for that matter) benefits whatsoever.  Tax-based (i.e. government) funds should be spent exclusively on the citizens who paid those taxes, and not just on anyone who happens to be standing there.

I know, I know:

“That’s Krool & Hartless, Kim.  Why would you deny education to the CHIIIILDREN?  It’s not their fault their parents brought them here;  why would you punish them so?”

Ask their parents that question:  why would you bring your children with you and involve them in your criminal enterprise?  (Yes, illegal immigration is a crime, ipse facto.)

No.  Nobody deserves to be rewarded for criminal behavior — which is what all this is — and while I agree that it would indeed be cruel and heartless to deny medical care to anyone, it still doesn’t make it right that our hospitals treat illegal immigrants for their ailments and injuries, especially when it is precisely that (free) treatment which gives them an incentive to come over here in the first place.  Ditto child education.

Here’s the thing.  What did people think was going to be the result of our government actually following and enforcing immigrant law to its proper extent and function?  Of course this was going to create hardship on the illegal immigrants and their families — in the same way, incidentally, that sending a criminal to jail for, say, armed robbery creates hardship for their family.  That should be part of the deterrent.

But guess what?  Failure to enforce the law — as the Biden government failed to do — simply creates an incentive to break the law.  If you are not going to prosecute people for the crime of shoplifting, for example, then don’t be surprised when shoplifting becomes endemic.  We’ve seen this happen in cities governed according to this foolishness — why would we think it would be any different for any other kind of crime, such as in this case illegal immigration?

I’m really glad that Texas legislators are doing what they’re doing — what they’re supposed to be doing — which is to take away incentives for people to break the law and suffer no consequences.  And ignore idiots like this squish:

“These all represent a broader and more coordinated shift … to create a pipeline of exclusion that stretches from limiting access to K-12 education, all the way into participation in the workforce and basic mobility through the state,” Corinne Kentor, with the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, told the outlet.

Yup.  Keep going, guys, and get rid of the benefits of criminal behavior;  this is what we voted for.