More done for illegals & undocumented than for America's needy

Politics drives support for illegal immigrants (migrants), at the cost of millions of American citizens who need help but are faceless and abandoned living in dire circumstances

By Ray Hanania

FREE/Undocumented Illegal Aliens/Tuesday June 18, 2024

It's amazing how America is being forced and pressured to accept migrants, undocumented people and foreigners who enter this country illegally.

These illegal aliens are also being given all kinds of benefits, including temporary housing shelter that often becomes permanent, funding, and documentation services including driver's licenses (like in Illinois and several other states).

Their plight seems horrible and they are played up in the news media as being urgently in need of our help.

A recent analysis presented to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on January 11, 2024 by Steven A. Camarota Director of Research Center for Immigration Studies, estimates that each illegal alien receives about $68,000 a year in income and benefits, in addition to welfare benefits. More than 59 percent of illegal immigrants rely on welfare-funded services, compared to 39 percent of U.S. born households.

Overall, the United States pays more than $42 billon a year on illegal immigrants for food, Medicaid, housing and other forms of support.

Children of illegal aliens are given special privileges and status and receive funds and support under DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

We don't know the precise number of illegal aliens living in America, but the House Judiciary Committee estimates that in 2024 there were nearly 13 million. The number increased from 2021 by about 2.3 million.

In contrast, America has more than 30,600 Affordable Assisted Living Facilities (AALF) in America where millions of American citizens who are poor, homeless, indigent and seniors are forced to live because they can't work and survive only on Social Security. They are also called "Supportive Living Communities." Dormitories for the poor and abandoned, homeless and thrown away.

Most only receive some level of minimal Social Security or Social Security Insurance (SSI) which is about $750 a month, and a small portion receive extra money from friends or relatives. The majority are abandoned and left to die in the centers and never see anyone, not a friend or even a relative.

The typical AALF for a senior or homeless person may house as many as 600 people, two people per room. Each room is about 10 feet wide and 20 feet long.

The rooms have one bed with a draw-screen separating them. They have a small table where the "residents" can place a TV set and connect it to the Internet. They share public showers and toilets.

Their clothes are barely washed. Most of what they have comes from donations. The AALF provide soap and plates to eat.

Costs vary but for an SSI recipient in one of these homes, about 92 percent of the SSI check goes to the home and a small portion is supposed to be given to the resident and are used for miscellaneous needs.

Many of the residents in these AAFL homes are incapable of caring for themselves. They survive on a breakfast of eggs and bread, a lunch sandwich, usually ham on white bread, and a dinner, usually fried chicken or ham slices with mashed potatoes. They also get a liquid drink either milk, water or apple juice.

The residents receive minimal healthcare, usually through Medicaid Very few of the centers have programs for the residents. Depending where the centers are located -- most are in poor and low-income neighborhoods and communities -- residents can leave the centers to hang out in nearby malls.

But because they are poor and rarely have more than a few pieces of clothing that rarely get washed, they are often thrown out of the stores.

Their big moment is the "cigarette break" that comes several times each day.

In Cook county, a carton of cigarettes (10 packs) costs about $170, although many unscrupulous gas stations charge more than $200 knowing that the poorest consumers do much of the smoking.

They often get "Obama phones," a program to provide cell phones to AALF residents. The problem of course is that many of the residents are sick, suffer from schizophrenia, and are incapable of remembering passwords or access codes. They only get about 60 minutes per month, and when they use 411 the cell phone companies providing the cell phones under the government funded program, charge them $4 per 411 call.

These Americans are being cast away by an American society that could do far more to help them.

Instead, America is more concerned about the politics of immigration and they only help the migrants, undocumented, and illegal aliens. The money being given to these immigrants who enter America illegally could be and should be spent on improving the lives of the people in these AALF homes.

The employees and staffs in these AALF homes are overworked, abused by residents who because of their sickness are angry, yell, scream and constantly complain as they live in their squalor. They do their best but they can't do much more.

These are not the luxury retirement homes that you often see advertised on television that cost as much as $2,800 to $7,000 a month where the elderly are often placed through insurance coverage and family support. The faceless abandoned American citizens who are seniors, disabled and invalid, live in squalor an entire year on less than $7,000.

Don't mix the two systems up as they are completely different. One is driven by basic survival and abandoned by society. The other is driven by family support and funding availability.

Most of the people living in these AALF properties on SSI are indigent and abandoned by families that don't have the resources or ability to care for them.

They are often sent to the homes by hospital psych wards where they have been sent after being pickup by police for wandering the streets or acting incoherent. The police take them to a hospital and the hospital works with local AALF homes to place them after they have been heavily medicated to bring down their aggressiveness and the anger that comes with being abandoned, thrown out like trash and ignored.

Why are they being ignored by American society? Why have we pushed them aside?

They don't have a political lobby. No one champions their causes like those who fight for the "rights" of illegal aliens, migrants and undocumented residents. And this column doesn’t even address the hundreds of thousands of veterans who are also in this horrible condition in different circumstances.

I have spoken to many of them. Their situation is dire. Many beg to find a jobs to earn some money to pay for food, cigarettes or newer clothing to replace the putrid smelling garments they wear and sleep in every day.

They are faceless. We avoid seeing them. They do very little for them.

What is happening to them is a national shame.

You may have one of these homes near you. If you don, consider going there and arranging to make a donation to help the residents who desperately need someone who will care for them the way politicians and activists care for illegals.