The Arithmetic of Humanity: Reclaiming the #Humanity Buried Beneath #Policy and #Propaganda

In his recent speech at the United Nations, Trump declared that the U.S. government is being shut down because Democrats want to give healthcare to illegal immigrants. It sounds outrageous, doesn’t it? That single sentence, sharp and certain, was designed to burn. But beneath its heat, the truth tells another story.

The actual portion of America’s healthcare budget that goes to undocumented immigrants? Less than one percent.

That’s not a rounding error. Emergency Medicaid for undocumented people accounts for under 1% of total Medicaid spending. These are not luxury treatments or endless benefits. These are moments of crisis: someone bleeding on a highway after being struck by a car. Someone’s child gasping for breath. The American way — at its best — is to save a life.

The alternative? To look away. To let them die!

And yet, even this tiny percentage of mercy has become the weapon.

“Still,” some will say, “that one percent is ours.” Possibly, but far from draining the system, undocumented immigrants sustain it. They contribute over $97 billion in taxes each year — an amount equal to the entire state of Ohio’s tax revenue.

Yes, you read that correctly. The average undocumented immigrant contributes between $8,000 and $10,000 annually in taxes.

Let’s be clear: every nation has the right to guard its borders, to craft policy, to balance compassion with order. But fear is not and should not be policy. And truth is not treason.

We are told that ‘these people’ are dangerous, that their presence endangers our peace. But the raw, unpartisan data tells another story. According to the Cato Institute, undocumented immigrants are 41% less likely to be incarcerated than American citizens. Documented immigrants are 74% less likely.

Still, the myths persist. Because outrage is easy to manufacture, and fear is a currency that never loses value. This administration — and others before it — have relied on outrage to divide, on fear to distract, and on division to blind. And while we are blinded, things are happening in the shadows that we once called crimes against humanity.

Why do we tolerate it now?

Ask yourself:
Would you accept such violence if it were happening to your mother? Your father? Your child?

If your answer is no, then the answer must also be no when it happens to someone else’s. Because empathy cannot, should not, and must not have borders. Compassion must apply to all or be just another hypocritical device of division.

If you think of yourself as kind, compassionate, or, at the very least, tolerant, than you cannot accept the atrocities that are happening right now. Children being beaten, zip-tied, abused, neglected. Families being shattered. People disappearing. History is repeating itself yet again.

As Commander Riker said to Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation,

“Maybe if we felt any loss as keenly as we felt the death of one close to us, human history would be a lot less bloody.”

Perhaps this is where our healing needs to begin — not in argument or outrage — but in remembering that their pain is ours, too.

ArtbyMorganCMorgan

~ Morgan C. Morgan
Writer of light, shadow, and the stories between.

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