[lottin]

No immigrant who turns up at the US border has paid any taxes or contributed anything to US society. It's ridiculous to suggest otherwise. Anyway, that wasn't the point. The point is that if you enter a foreign country it's your responsibility not to bring any diseases with you.

[saturn_vk]

> No immigrant who turns up at the US border has paid any taxes or contributed anything to US society. It's ridiculous to suggest otherwise.

Are you trying to tell me that until someone becomes a citizen in the US, they pay no taxes whatsoever? I find that hard to believe.

[lottin]

> Are you trying to tell me that until someone becomes a citizen in the US, they pay no taxes whatsoever?

No, that's not what I'm saying.

[trog]

> No immigrant who turns up at the US border has paid any taxes or contributed anything to US society. It's ridiculous to suggest otherwise. Anyway, that wasn't the point. The point is that if you enter a foreign country it's your responsibility not to bring any diseases with you.

This is so laughably silly I don't even know where to begin.

First of all, I was a temporary immigrant to the US and I immediately was on the hook for a bunch of money as part of my visa application process. So immediately I'd argue your first point is incorrect on that technicality anyway, not to mention I was basically moving to the US to start a business so then spent the next two years dumping money into the economy.

What is your expectation of responsibility here? You can be sick and not know you're sick. You can be sick and asymptomatic. You can be sick and think you're sick with something basic like a cold but it's actually the flu or COVID or something else more sinister.

Pretending that anyone is going to adhere to an undefined system of responsibility at the best of times, let alone when it comes to moving overseas into a different country, seems ludicrous to me - I'm supposed to cancel might flight and re-arrange my immigration plans because I have a runny nose?

If you want to have a healthy country you need publicly accessible healthcare for everyone. We literally just had an object lesson in this with the COVID pandemic - indeed, we're still in the middle of the object lesson, where people's sense of "responsibility" towards others when it comes to communicable diseases is visible everywhere you look.

[lottin]

You didn't pay any taxes. Paying for your visa application is not a tax. Your sense of entitlement is sickening. The US does NOT owe you anything.

[trog]

You said "paid any taxes or contributed anything". I'm just pointing out that you're wrong, right out of the gate.

And even if you were right, which you're not, you'd be wrong about 10 minutes after the average immigrant turns up when they first have to buy something and pay sales tax.

The "sense of entitlement" exists in your head. I'm noting that if you want to have a healthy society, a plan to look after sick people is a necessity. Your sort of thinking is exactly why almost one in three hundred Americans died in the first year of the pandemic.

FWIW I left the US for the UK in 2016. Before arriving there I had to pay into their national health insurance scheme. If you object to immigrants coming and not paying their way you could agitate for such a scheme. But I assume that's not the point.

Anyway, looks like you're going to get what you want and nobody is going to come to the US any more. You'll get to see what it's like when it works like that.

[lottin]

Look, I object to the idea that the host country is responsible for the spread of diseases that are brought by immigrants, which is what you're implying when you blame the spread of diseases on the lack of affordable healthcare. I didn't know this was controversial.

[trog]

It's totally normal for countries to screen for this stuff both at border entry and as part of the immigration process. In Australia we check at the border if you're coming from a country where they have certain diseases (e.g. yellow fever). If you're applying for some immigration status you need medical checks if you're from certain countries to screen you for certain conditions (e.g. tuberculosis).

It is absolutely the host country's responsibility to do this to keep their own citizens safe.

[lottin]

They can keep their citizens safe by simply not accepting migrants from these countries.