Xenophobia?

[The Grand Nudger]

What are you on about? Of course they can, but that has nothing to do with this issue.

The problem is not with immigrants who decide to work and pay taxes; it is with those who come here and do not work or pay taxes, but still use (free) public services. Should people be able to leave their country of birth and exploit the welfare systems of other countries just because we belong to the EU? I don't think that is very fair.

You don't think so? If we're talking about immigrants who come to your country - become citizens, find work, or don't....I can't imagine what the problem might be with a citizen availing themselves of the services a government provides.

Neither do I (think it's fair) - and? Where does that lead?

Here you have to at least have a ss number. Of course you can always defraud the system - but criminals do criminal things, amiright? I'm assuming that the services you're talking about don't have those sorts of checks and/or there is no concept of "defrauding the system". All of this also assumes that said immigrant did not become a citizen, of course, because if they did - i don't see the problem.

Now, there are some things here that we don't really run checks for - but simultaneously aren't free services to anybody anyway. Like, say, a sugarcane worker that happens to be a migrant and/or undocumented "alien" gets dropped at the ER door by a crew leader with a rattlesnake bite. They'll go ahead and treat him anyway (I suppose because the alternative is to let him possibly die at the ER steps).

In the UK, they actually exist. Some of them are extremely cocky. In the newspapers a few months ago they had an interview with a couple who had a baby and freely admitted that they weren't even looking for work, because their parents had paid taxes all their lives.

I'm skeptical Tibs. I think that they probably exist very much in articles (like they did here - until they didn't), but I don't know how much water that the idea holds outside the arena of influencing public opinion. Who knows, I could be dead wrong, but previous experience with the notion of "wellfare queens" has left a horrible taste of dishonesty (not, mind you, on your part - but on the part of those who peddle the tales) in my mouth. We could trade stories all day, of course. I have a buddy who stayed on unemployment for the max allowable timeframe because he could not find a job that could support his family (after losing a job that could) - so it made very little sense for him to work at McDonalds to make an ideological point. At some point, I can't remember how long into unemployment it was, he just stopped looking. There was nothing there, nothing was going to materialize, he knew it, everybody knew it, and he couldn't aford the gas he spent looking anymore anyway. His choice was to continue cashing his "Obama-Money" (my friend qualifies for just about every negative stereotypical epitaph you could hurl at him btw - wears them all like a badge of pride) or to lose that check in return for a minimum wage job that simply could not shelter or feed his family. He made the smart decision, and stayed on the dole. Is he a welfare king?

(he did end up catching a break, got a ok-ish job filing paperwork for a medical insurance co- if they'd have let him, he'd have stayed on unemployment until something else came up, he's stuck moving his wife and kids from one friends house to the next right now until something better comes along)

My wife and I get WIC, foodstamps, free healthcare for our kids, we both pay about 10% costs on some medical this and that's ourselves - and we own our own respective businesses. We pay taxes, but we get every dime back and then some at the end of the year. Are we welfare royalty?