One of the most famous thought experiments in quantum mechanics is called Schrödinger’s cat.
Devised by Erwin Schrödinger, it illustrates the concept of superposition, theorizing that a cat is in a sealed box with a radioactive atom, a hammer, a Geiger counter and a vial of poison.
If the atom decays, the Geiger counter detects it, triggering the hammer to smash the vial, killing the cat. If the atom does not decay, the cat lives.
Until the box is opened, the atom is in a superposition of both decayed and not decayed, meaning the cat is simultaneously both alive and dead.
So what does this have to do with immigration?
People in power in my country, the United States, love to do something I call “hating downward.” It’s when you blame all the problems in the average citizen’s lives on people who have it worse off than you.
For hundreds of years in this country, despite immigration being the defining feature that has made us the melting pot we are, immigrants have been blamed for almost every issue facing our population.
Can’t find a job? The immigrants took them all.
Can’t buy a house? The immigrants are flooding the housing market.
The government is in debt? It’s because immigrants are mooching all the welfare programs.
Problems with crime? Immigrants, obviously.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent even recently blamed high beef prices on migrants bringing sick cows across the border.
Conservative political commentator Benny Johnson has said, “Every single thing you hate about your life right now or American culture is caused by mass immigration.”
Somehow immigrants — especially undocumented immigrants — are lazy enough to leech everyone’s welfare, SNAP, Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security benefits, but they also are hardworking enough to take everyone’s jobs and buy all the houses to drive up the costs of the housing market.
I call it Schrödinger’s immigrant, a person in superposition as both lazy/entitled and also extremely industrious.
It doesn’t make sense, but neither does blaming people worse off than us for all of our problems in the first place.
Do you remember the lead-up to the 2024 election? Joe Biden apparently let in 20 million “illegals.” There were unfounded accusations of Haitians eating people’s pets in Springfield. Donald Trump ran his campaign on mass deportations and that’s one of the promises he’s kept.
The Department of Homeland Security’s immigration and customs enforcement division’s budget was provided an additional $75 billion over four years with the passing of the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” making it the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency.
We’ve now seen ICE raids in cities around the country, people being scooped up by masked agents while attending court proceedings, working their jobs or just minding their own business in the streets.
It’s been going on for nearly a full year at this point, with people being deported left and right, many being denied entry at the border and countless others simply choosing not to enter the country in the first place.
So if all the theories about immigrants being to blame were correct, why isn’t anything getting better for regular Americans?
Groceries aren’t any cheaper. Unemployment continues to rise nationally, hitting 4.4%, the highest rate since the COVID pandemic. Housing feels less affordable than ever due to historic high prices and elevated mortgage rates. Automobiles are more expensive than ever, combined with high interest rates and millions of Americans like me were just forced to cancel their health insurance with the expiration of Affordable Care Act tax subsidies.
It’s almost as if the immigrants were never actually the problem.
I got to meet some immigrants last week, sitting down with a group of Venezuelans who came to America for a variety of reasons like escaping political persecution, extortion, horrific poverty or simply trying to make a better life for their families. They shared their stories with me and their thoughts on the political situation happening in their home country.
One of them, Oscar, was described by a U.S. citizen who knows him as, “Someone whose character is unbelievable. He is the kind of people America needs.”
That doesn’t sound like a moocher or a criminal to me.
Immigrants live here. They work here. They are raising families here. They pay taxes. They spend their money at our local businesses. They participate in the community. Many are attending classes to learn English so they can better participate in our society.
It’s easy to blame others for all of your problems, but that doesn’t make it true.
The real root of our problems is much more complicated than that. Wage stagnation, corporate consolidation, growing income inequality, the decline of unions, soaring costs of health care and education and repeated tax cuts for the wealthiest among us all play a part.
If you’re not 100% Native American, at some point you relied on an immigrant to get to the United States. How about instead of blaming immigrants for all of our problems, we stop looking down and start looking up at the real culprits?
