Prologue: The Lies We Love to Tell
They say America is the great villain of immigration—the snarling face of cruelty, the jailer of dreams, the land where children are ripped from their mothers and asylum seekers are left to rot in the desert heat. From Paris to Canberra, from Berlin to Toronto, the choir of condemnation rings loud: "Shame on the United States."
And we buy it. We suck it up and eat that narrative like it’s gospel, served up by bleeding-heart pundits and red-faced protesters who still get their coffee from baristas working illegally, still hire nannies without visas, and still don’t know the difference between a refugee and a work visa overstay. We play both sides, with a moral compass spun by media emotion, political theater, and historical delusion.
But here’s the rub: What if we’re not the outlier? What if—brace yourself—we’re actually the most transparent of the global enforcers? What if Canada, land of syrup and civility, locks people up and dumps them at the nearest legal gray zone? What if Australia, all sunshine and kangaroos, operates offshore island prisons so brutal they’d make Guantanamo blush? What if Europe’s moral compass points straight to Libya’s slave markets, because that’s where they pay to keep the migrants?
And no hypocrisy drips thicker than the paint on a French brick wall.
On July 4th weekend, in the city of Roubaix, a towering mural appeared: the Statue of Liberty, face buried in her hands, ashamed. Titled “The Statue of Liberty’s Silent Protest,” the piece by Dutch street artist Judith de Leeuw quickly went viral—a finger-wagging visual condemnation of America’s immigration policies. Painted with solemn precision and righteous fury, it was unveiled just as President Trump was preparing to sign what he called his “Big Beautiful Bill “—a velvet-wrapped wrecking ball aimed squarely at a patchwork of public programs spanning the ideological spectrum, from red-state rural clinics to blue-city homeless shelters—because bipartisanship, apparently, is best served with a sledgehammer.
The timing? Impeccable. The irony? Off the charts. Because while de Leeuw mourned a child being torn from his home in the U.S., her mournful Lady Liberty stood in France—a nation that deports undocumented migrants in the dead of night, fences in its Roma population, and quietly funds pushbacks in the Mediterranean that leave Black bodies bobbing in silence.
Liberty may have sailed from France to America, but guilt seems to have never made the return trip.
This isn’t to exonerate America. Far from it. But this is a world tour of border hypocrisy. A safari into the savage heart of immigration policy. A brutal, satirical, and unflinching portrait of how nearly every nation screams compassion and then signs deportation orders behind closed doors.
We’ll visit detention centers. We’ll look at drowning children. We’ll meet the smugglers, the saints, the sellouts, and the ghosts. And by the end, maybe—just maybe—you’ll stop asking, "Why is America so cruel?" and start asking, "Why is everyone else so good at hiding it?"
This is not a defense. It’s a mirror. Hold it steady, gaze into it, be brave, and do your level best not to look away.
Chapter I: The Great American Mirage
You can almost hear it—the echo of Emma Lazarus’s words clanging like a half-broken bell in the back of our collective memory: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” It’s embroidered on throw pillows, plastered on protest signs, and recited at galas full of people whose gated driveways suggest a different interpretation of “welcome.”
But Ellis Island is a memory, not a model. And the statue that once greeted boats now silently watches chartered deportation flights vanish into the sky like ghosts of promises past. America loves its mythology, especially when it comes to immigration. We sell the dream—then panic when it shows up at the border with a duffel bag and no papers.
The truth is, we need the very people we pretend not to. The hands that pick our strawberries, mop our floors, drywall our homes, and tend to our children often belong to the undocumented. They are the indispensable and the invisible. They file your taxes and change your bedpans, all while being treated like radioactive contraband wrapped in a hoodie.
But when it comes time for policy? Cue the moral theater.
We stage a political circus—border walls as campaign props, ICE raids as primetime drama, “Catch and Release” soundbites to rile up the base. Behind the scenes, the same employers lobbying against immigration enforcement are the ones relying on the cheap labor it quietly provides. It’s kabuki with paperwork.
This schizophrenia is no accident. It’s a system built to soothe the conscience of the chattering class while preserving the bottom line. The left screams for sanctuary; the right screams for security; and both quietly tiptoe around the economic engine powered by undocumented labor like it's their cocaine habit in a dry county.
Meanwhile, the media plays the part of national conscience—when it suits the narrative. A child in a cage? Front page. A hundred people deported overnight? Back to the lifestyle section. The outrage is real—but selectively applied. The camera lens zooms in and out, depending on which party needs the boost.
Newsrooms clutch their pearls at the sight of a Border Patrol agent—but then run feel-good profiles on the tech moguls whose lawns are manicured by people those same agents just hauled away.
And what do we do? We look at the southern border like a morality play instead of what it is: a logistical, economic, legal, and human quagmire. One where empathy dies of dehydration and politics feeds off the spectacle like a feral hog at a campaign buffet.
America, in all its democratic splendor, cannot decide what it wants more: to be the land of opportunity or the gated community of privilege. So, we try to be both—and end up being neither.
Coming up: the real hypocrisy begins. Let’s take a stroll through the immigration policies of the world’s loudest moralists. You’ll want a stiff drink, a double shot of cynicism, and a strong stomach. Especially when we get to France—because oh là là, mes amis, you haven’t seen hypocrisy until you've seen it in haute couture.
Chapter II: Do As We Say, Not As We Deport
They call us cruel, unjust, racist—a nation of cages and cruelty, ripping babies from their mothers, hunting dreamers through neighborhoods, and building walls that stretch to the sky with all the grace of a prison fence. And yet…
The world’s moral grandstanders—those who gasp at CNN’s footage from El Paso or cry crocodile tears at the UN—are often the same nations that quietly, efficiently, and brutally enforce immigration regimes far more draconian than our own. You’d think they were auditioning for a Nobel Peace Prize and a private equity stake in tear gas distribution at the same time.
Start with Canada. Our polite upstairs neighbor with healthcare, hockey, and a smug sense of moral superiority marinated in maple syrup. Canadian officials speak in soft tones about human dignity while calmly deporting tens of thousands every year—often with less due process than a Netflix password reset. Show up at their door without the right papers and you'll be returned to the U.S. like a defective Amazon package, but with fewer apologies.
Then there’s France—the birthplace of Lady Liberty herself and now the global capital of selective outrage. Their idea of diplomacy? A 40-foot mural of the Statue of Liberty sobbing into her own hands like she just read the Yelp reviews for American foreign policy. This was unveiled on July 4th, of course—just subtle enough to make sure every American tourist in Roubaix got the message. Meanwhile, back in Paris, migrant encampments are bulldozed at dawn and police sweep through train stations like immigration-minded mimes. Vive la Deportation.
Germany, once the darling of refugee advocates, has quietly returned to being the DMV of asylum seekers: long lines, arbitrary rules, and no sense of humor. Merkel's famous “Willkommen” has been replaced with a very efficient “Weg da.” Asylum rejections are issued with all the warmth of a parking ticket, and deportation flights take off with such regularity you’d think Lufthansa got a government contract. Refugee? More like wrong flavor of desperate.
Australia? Oh, bless them. They denounce America’s border wall while outsourcing their conscience to a couple of tropical hellholes. Arrive by boat and you’ll be whisked away to Nauru or Manus Island—a cross between a prison, a refugee camp, and a Kafka short story. Their official policy is that no one arriving without permission will ever be settled in Australia, which is basically just a more tanned way of saying “Get off my lawn.”
Then there's Mexico—the Janus-faced enforcer of the hemisphere. On the one hand, they denounce U.S. cruelty in press conferences with all the righteous flair of a telenovela villain. On the other, they militarize their southern border, disappear journalists who get too close, and “process” Central American migrants with the subtlety of a drug cartel HR department. Chiapas has become the Ellis Island of disappointment, but with more extortion.
Even the Nordic countries—those chilly utopias of social equity—have joined the deportation game. Denmark is so committed to integration they now seize refugees' wedding rings to pay for their stay. Sweden, once the humanitarians of Europe, has started loading planes like it's Black Friday at IKEA. And Norway? Norway deports families so discreetly it makes you wonder if they subcontract to Santa. Human rights with the emotional tone of a tax audit.
China, of course, wins the hypocrisy Olympics without breaking a sweat. State-run media lectures the U.S. about racial injustice while the Chinese government returns fleeing North Koreans to certain death and makes asylum about as accessible as Gmail behind the Great Firewall. There is no refugee policy. No asylum. Just facial recognition, population control, and the kind of deportation efficiency that would give ICE a corporate inferiority complex.
Iran and Venezuela bring up the rear like rogue nations at a human rights cosplay convention. They rail against American cruelty while producing their own refugees at industrial scale and jailing anyone who tries to leave. These are not countries with border policies—they are geopolitical fire alarms screaming for the very asylum they refuse to grant.
And yet, somehow, we’re the villains. The scapegoat. The headline act in a pageant of hypocrisy so global it deserves its own Olympic ceremony. America doesn’t have a monopoly on harsh borders—we just have better production values. We televise our mistakes. We hashtag our moral crises. We give our immigration failures a press tour and a book deal.
And here’s the paradox: for all its dysfunction and drama, the U.S. still offers more legal immigration pathways than almost any country on Earth. Millions of green cards, visas, asylum claims, student slots, and DACA protections—all while tolerating millions of undocumented people who, in most of these same countries, wouldn’t last one hour without a boot, a baton, or a deportation order. We’re chaotic, sure. But we’re loud. And in this world, volume equals villainy.
So why do they hate us? Because we broadcast our borders. We don’t hide our hypocrisy—we televise it, stream it, debate it in prime time, and air it with commercial breaks. America is the world’s mirror, reflecting not just our own contradictions but everyone else’s too. And sometimes, the mirror gets tired of being shattered by the very people it reflects.
Chapter III: Borders, Barbed Wire, and Bullsh*t
Modern borders aren’t lines anymore. They’re ledgers.
They come with invoices, contracts, and stock options. They're built not just with concrete and wire, but with lobbying dollars, procurement protocols, and Orwellian euphemisms so polished you could drink from them.
We pretend immigration is a matter of policy—about rule of law, national sovereignty, or human dignity. But behind the podiums and press releases is a simpler truth: borders are a business. And the business is booming.
In America, the enterprise is practically turnkey. Two private prison giants—CoreCivic and GEO Group—lead the charge. These companies once built jails. Now they build detention centers. Because detaining immigrants, it turns out, is a lot more profitable than housing convicted criminals—fewer regulations, faster turnover, and better PR if you use words like “shelter” instead of “cage.”
Each migrant brings in up to $300 a day in federal payments. Multiply that by tens of thousands of detainees, spread across hundreds of facilities, and you’ve got a recurring revenue stream that would make a hedge fund blush. CoreCivic and GEO don’t just profit from the policy—they shape it. They pour millions into lobbying for tougher laws, longer detentions, and fewer release options. Every migrant is a metric. Every surge is a windfall.
And it doesn’t stop at concrete and bunks.
Enter Silicon Valley. Companies like Palantir, Anduril, Axon, and Amazon Web Services are developing high-tech tools for border surveillance. AI-driven facial recognition towers, predictive risk scoring, thermal drones tracking desert movement—what used to be counterterrorism tech in Kandahar is now monitoring exhausted families in Arizona. It’s not about safety. It’s about efficiency. The faster you can scan, sort, and separate, the better the margins.
But the genius of the border-industrial complex is that it’s global. If the U.S. is the storefront, Europe is the warehouse.
The EU has outsourced its soul to Libyan warlords. Through multi-million-euro “migration management” payments, European nations fund armed groups masquerading as coast guards. These groups intercept African migrants in the Mediterranean and return them to land-based hellholes euphemistically called detention centers—where torture, rape, and extortion are business as usual. This is not policy. This is colonial subcontracting with modern branding.
Italy signs off. Germany nods. France funds. Brussels holds a press conference. Everyone keeps a straight face.
Then there’s Turkey, which secured €6 billion from the EU to keep millions of Syrian refugees pinned inside sprawling containment zones. The refugees serve as leverage: if Europe criticizes Erdoğan’s authoritarian drift, he threatens to open the gates. Diplomacy by hostage.
Australia has refined cruelty to a tropical science. Refugees intercepted at sea are exiled to remote islands like Manus and Nauru, where they languish indefinitely in facilities run by contractors like Broadspectrum—a firm that rebrands more often than it reforms. These are not holding centers. They are slow-burn prisons where despair is engineered, and suicide attempts come with standard operating procedures.
The United Kingdom, not to be left behind, launched what it called a “Migration and Economic Development Partnership” with Rwanda (Sports Fans, I’m not making this up). The Home Office paid Rwanda £140 million, plus processing fees, to take in asylum seekers deported from the UK. Officially, it's a humane and innovative solution. In practice, it’s bureaucratic banishment on a private jet.
And while the UK government owns the policy, the logistics are conveniently outsourced. Charter flights are operated by Titan Airways. Detention centers are run by Mitie, G4S, and Serco—firms whose core competencies include losing people, mismanaging crises, and invoicing promptly. In Kigali, deportees are received at facilities like the freshly painted Hope Hostel, funded by British taxpayers and managed with all the transparency of a fogged-up shower mirror.
The British government insists the program is “humane, legal, and fair”—which is exactly the sort of phrase one utters before forcibly removing refugees to a country thousands of miles away, stripped of family, community, and meaningful appeal. It isn’t immigration enforcement. It’s logistics theater, starring ministers, middlemen, and moral outsourcing at scale.
The UK made the policy. The contractors booked the tickets. Rwanda got the check.
And the migrants?
They got a one-way flight and a brochure.
Beneath all this churn is the real machinery: language. Not truth. Not values. Language. Carefully engineered euphemisms that make cruelty sound efficient, and efficiency sound kind.
This is what happens when immigration policy is written by consultants and edited by crisis comms. The cruelty never lessens—it just changes fonts.
Even the United Nations plays along. They issue grave statements, convene well-catered roundtables, and publish glossy reports with titles like “Toward a Sustainable Human Mobility Framework.” Meanwhile, the countries funding this violence sit on the same panels—nodding solemnly, sipping espresso, and approving the next biometric surveillance grant.
Even the nonprofits have figured out how to get paid. Some win government contracts to run migrant shelters. Others offer “trauma-informed intake protocols,” which mostly involve 47-page forms, laminated signage, and webinars on cross-cultural empathy delivered by people who’ve never met a migrant.
This is what we now call progress. It’s polished. It’s profitable. And it’s entirely intentional.
This system doesn’t malfunction. It dehumanizes by design.
It runs on paperwork, branding decks, and just enough plausible deniability to keep the lawsuits slow and the stock prices steady.
So no, the border isn’t broken. It’s operating at maximum efficiency—as a deterrent, a business, and a global PR stunt.
We didn’t fail to build a humane immigration system. We built a brutal one—on purpose. Then we handed it over to contractors, branded it as stability, and called it reform.
And the world?
The world bought every word.
Chapter IV: Where Borders Kill
The Global Immigration Abuse Matrix
We talk about borders like they’re lines on a map or topics for cocktail banter—“So, what do you think about the situation in Calais?” But for millions, borders are not metaphors. Borders are blunt instruments—used to detain, discard, or disappear the people nobody wants to see and everyone pretends to care about.
Let’s zoom in on Libya, where the EU—yes, your favorite cheese-and-chardonnay bloc—has handed the keys to immigration control to a patchwork of militias, warlords, and pirate brigades rebranded as the “Libyan Coast Guard.” They intercept migrants at sea, return them to makeshift torture dungeons, and auction them off like it’s 1840. And who’s footing the bill? Europe. You. Congrats, sports fans—your euros just sponsored a slave market.
Then there’s Saudi Arabia, where Ethiopian migrants are locked in desert cells that make Guantánamo look like a Marriott. No food, no fans, and definitely no CNN coverage. Just heat, beatings, and YouTube videos recorded by guards with sadistic camera angles. But don’t worry—they’re applying for the World Cup again, so it’s all good.
Malaysia and the UAE play it classier. They don’t beat migrants—at least not on camera. They just take their passports, trap them in debt, and work them like rented mules. It’s a kinder, gentler form of human trafficking—delivered with a fruit basket and a contract nobody can read. So, next time you’re sipping a $19 turmeric latte by your Dubai infinity pool, just remember: it’s not exploitation if the landscaping crew smiles through their third heat stroke of the day.
South Africa gets real creative. They outsource their hate to mobs. Zimbabweans, Malawians, Congolese—they’re blamed for crime, jobs, and just about everything short of load-shedding. Then they’re chased down by machete-wielding locals while police sip tea and shrug. One official called it “unfortunate civic unrest.” Translation: don’t get caught speaking Swahili in the wrong neighborhood.
Morocco is the bouncer at Europe’s velvet-roped border. They beat migrants, rob them, and dump them in the desert like unwanted Uber Eats deliveries. In return? Spain wires over another batch of “cooperation funds.” Want to stop the beatings? Try crossing the fence. But do it quietly—screams don’t test well with Spanish voters.
China skips the drama. No asylum system. No resettlement. Just facial recognition, biometric surveillance, and expedited vanishing services. Try crossing the border illegally, and you’ll be repatriated faster than you can say “U.N. sanctions”—or just sent to a “vocational training center,” where you’ll learn how to be a ghost in your own life.
Iran exports refugees by the truckload—ethnic minorities, LGBTQ citizens, the politically inconvenient—and imports none. If you're Afghan and unlucky enough to land in Iran without papers, you’ll face torture, forced labor, or a quick trip back across the border, where fresh dangers await. Iran has achieved a rare thing in geopolitics: it has weaponized both sides of the immigration crisis.
And our old friend Mexico? Let’s not pretend they’re innocent. At the southern border with Guatemala, migrants are beaten, extorted, and sometimes killed—not just by cartels but by the Mexican National Guard. This isn’t immigration enforcement—it’s a shakedown with uniforms.
The EU’s Favorite Dirty Secret — Now with Extra Denial Sauce
Now let’s talk about the continent that loves to lecture America while cutting checks for other countries to do its dirty work. It’s like hiring a hitman, then holding a press conference about peace.
Italy, France, Germany, Spain—the whole gang’s in on it. They call it “externalization.” We call it human rights outsourcing.
Italy provides boats to Libyan death squads and calls it “maritime security.”
France throws cash at North African regimes while weeping on live TV about refugees.
Germany funds “capacity building” programs that translate into barbed wire and biometric scanners. Spain pays Morocco to beat people further away from the cameras.
And let’s not forget the EU’s Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, which sounds noble—until you realize it bankrolls drones, desert patrols, and what one NGO politely referred to as “noncompliant containment protocols.” Translation: people in cages, just with better PowerPoint decks.
So, think about this next time you’re vacationing in Santorini, clapping at a TED Talk about global empathy, or sipping Champagne at a human rights gala in Brussels. That sustainable charcuterie board was funded by the same political system that’s outsourcing torture and calling it diplomacy.
America may televise its sins, but Europe contracts them out—then gives itself an award.
Chapter V: Sanctuary Cities – The Theatre of the Woke and Broke
Welcome to the land of performative compassion. Sanctuary cities—those self-anointed moral lighthouses of the nation—promise refuge with one hand and hand people over with the other. San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Portland, Seattle, Washington D.C., Boston, Philadelphia, Denver—they’re less about protection, more about projection. This is theatre, folks—costumed, choreographed, and funded by taxpayers who think they’re buying virtue but get evictions and viral crime clips instead.
Let’s start with Los Angeles, helmed by former activist Karen Bass, who once marched against mass incarceration and now runs a city where immigrants get swallowed by a system she insists is “inclusive.” ICE can’t formally partner with LAPD, sure—but they don’t need to. They coordinate through courthouses, bus stations, and friendly jails. “We don’t cooperate with ICE,” says the city—unless, of course, it’s informally, quietly, or off the books.
Then there’s San Francisco, where the streets are paved with needles and press releases. SF loves to boast about being a safe haven—but not safe enough to stop ICE from tracking people through Greyhound bus stations, using the notorious “voluntary compliance” loophole. The city won’t detain immigrants on ICE’s behalf, but will still release booking information, court dates, and time-of-release data. It’s like refusing to serve alcohol at a party but sending guests home with a case of tequila and directions to the drunk tank.
And let’s not forget New York, the self-declared crown jewel of sanctuary. The city turned the historic Roosevelt Hotel—once known as “Little Ellis Island”—into a chaotic migrant shelter. The result? A humanitarian disaster with thousands crammed in, overrun staff, and city officials scrambling to explain why their policies failed faster than the elevators. It wasn’t just a housing failure—it was a symbolic collapse, where the very embodiment of American welcome turned into a bureaucratic triage center. The hotel was eventually shut down to the public, fenced off from reality, and repurposed into a living museum of good intentions gone bad.
Meanwhile, violent crime incidents connected to undocumented individuals have put sanctuary policies on national trial. When repeat offenders—protected under these policies—rape, murder, or assault, the cities don’t hold press conferences. They hold funerals. Just ask the grieving families. Sanctuary cities promise safety, until someone dies in a park, a subway, or a schoolyard—and suddenly, no one wants to talk about the visa status.
And don’t think this is anecdotal. In Chicago, where over 35,000 migrants have arrived since 2022, public safety has nosedived. The police are understaffed, housing is maxed out, and crime in migrant encampments—assaults, sexual violence, theft—is spiraling. The same city that declared itself a haven is now begging for National Guard backup and suing bus companies for bringing in the very people they swore to protect.
Washington D.C. has quietly transferred migrants to outer suburbs, away from the cameras and protests. Portland can't staff their schools but managed to build a $2 million “Welcome Hub” with plush seating, inspirational murals, and no plan for permanent housing. In Denver, shelters fill up so fast that even local residents are now being displaced to make room for newcomers—and the city council still finds time to pass symbolic anti-ICE resolutions, like candles in a blackout.
The irony? These cities still host ribbon cuttings for “compassion centers.” They fund DEI panels, anti-racism workshops, and mural unveilings—but cut budgets for housing, legal aid, and translation services. It’s “justice” by headline, “equity” by press release, and accountability by ghosting.
And then there’s The Greyhound Gambit—perhaps the most cynical workaround in the sanctuary playbook. Cities claim they don’t cooperate with ICE, but conveniently forget to regulate what happens at their bus depots. Immigration agents board, interrogate, and detain migrants on U.S. soil, all under the guise of “voluntary searches.” Cities shrug. “It’s not us—it’s the bus.” It’s not policy—it’s plausible deniability with free Wi-Fi.
So, what’s really going on?
These cities aren't protecting migrants. They’re outsourcing the crackdown. They posture while cooperating, deny while facilitating, and plead poverty while raking in federal reimbursements. It’s the nonprofit-industrial complex, where immigration becomes a brand, a budget line, and a photo op—until reality catches fire and someone has to sweep the ashes under the welcome mat.
And when residents protest? They’re labeled bigots.
This is the theatre of woke and broke.
A show that costs billions, saves no one, and plays to a shrinking audience of journalists, donors, and PR interns. So the next time you hear a mayor solemnly declare, “We are a sanctuary city,” ask a simple question:
For whom?
Because the answer might be: “Ourselves.”
Chapter VI: Cold Country, Warm Lies
Canada—the land of flannel, free health care, and smug moral superiority. A country where every prime minister tweets empathy, every passport feels polite, and every critique of U.S. immigration policy is wrapped in maple-syrup-sweet self-congratulation.
But don't let that northern charm fool you. Behind the rainbow flags and multicultural platitudes lies a fortress as fortified as anything south of the Rio Grande.
Let’s begin with the Safe Third Country Agreement, Canada’s bureaucratic backhand. It allows Canadian border agents to reject most asylum seekers outright if they’ve already passed through the United States. No hearing. No nuance. Just a friendly wave back to the American side—like a customs agent saying, “Nice try, now get lost.”
Meanwhile, Justin Trudeau—Canada’s Instagram Gaslighter-in-Chief—poses for photos with Syrian toddlers, tweets hashtags about welcome mats, and appears on magazine covers looking like the Dalai Lama’s social media intern. But behind the flashbulbs, his government quietly detains migrants in provincial jails and deports thousands a year with stunning efficiency and virtually no international backlash.
All while Canadians reap the benefits of the very country they criticize.
Let’s talk numbers. There are over 800,000 Canadians living in the United States—working, studying, investing, and living largely without hassle. In contrast, fewer than 300,000 Americans live in Canada. Why? Because crossing into Canada isn’t just hard—it’s nearly impossible unless you marry a moose or have a Ph.D. in Arctic sociology.
Here’s what Canadians can do in the U.S.—easily, freely, and often with special privileges:
Now let’s flip it.
Americans in Canada? Not so lucky.
Thanks to the 2023 “Prohibition on the Purchase of Residential Property by Non-Canadians Act,” Americans are barred from buying homes in major cities like Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. Want to invest in a fixer-upper in Calgary? Better check your passport—and your privilege.
The law was just extended through 2027. The message is clear - stay out:
And yet…
Canada lectures America on immigration like a sanctified neighbor who lets themselves into your house to judge the furniture. They criticize ICE, border walls, and visa caps—while quietly deporting migrants, burning refugee camps, and building their own legal firewalls.
So next time Trudeau tweets about inclusivity, think about that Haitian family turned away at the Quebec border. Think about the American vet who can’t buy a studio in Vancouver. Think about the detention centers in Laval that don’t make the CBC evening news.
Think about all the Canadian actors, developers, real-estate investors, and startup bros living tax-advantaged lives in the U.S.—while Americans face bans, delays, and denials just to cross north for the weekend.
Think about it, sports fans.
Canada isn’t more welcoming. It’s just better at branding and moral gaslighting, and in the end:
Loonies in glass igloos shouldn’t throw stones….
Chapter VII: Illegal Here, Essential There
They grow our food, clean our homes, build our cities, care for our children—and yet they live in fear. They are called “illegal” by the very nation that runs on their labor, profits from their silence, and denies them a path to legal existence. Welcome to the American immigration paradox: where undocumented workers are indispensable—and disposable.
You’ll find them in the sweltering Central Valley fields of California, harvesting the produce that ends up on Whole Foods shelves. In the back kitchens of five-star restaurants, washing dishes and prepping meals for Silicon Valley’s elite. In meatpacking plants in the Midwest, where the job descriptions read like OSHA violations. They lay tile and roofing in Arizona heat. Pour concrete and erect scaffolding in New York winters. Clean hotel rooms, process poultry, care for aging boomers, mow lawns, paint houses, drive delivery vans, tend golf courses, stock retail shelves, bus tables, pick grapes, slaughter livestock, trim cannabis, and install drywall in homes they’ll never afford to live in. They clean office buildings, sew garments in downtown L.A., provide childcare in suburban McMansions, and work the night shifts in warehouses no one sees.
These aren’t the “jobs Americans won’t do.” They’re the jobs Americans won’t do for the pay, the risk, or the silence. But undocumented workers? They do them all—without complaint, without rights, and without the luxury of ever getting sick or stepping out of line.
This wasn’t always the case. Fifty years ago, these same jobs were done by working-class Americans—high school kids, recent legal immigrants, poor whites, and Black Americans. Back when dignity in labor wasn’t a punchline. When a teenager would bag groceries or mop floors for gas money without demanding stock options. Then came the wage stagnation, the death of unions, the credentialism craze, and the rise of a culture that sees manual labor as failure and “influence” as achievement.
We engineered this mess. We turned hard work into humiliation. Then we outsourced it—first to offshore factories, and when that wasn’t close enough, to the undocumented workers we pretend don’t exist. Now, we’ve built a society where no teenager will clean a toilet for $16 an hour, but someone with no papers will do it for $9 and a threat. We've created a generation that thinks sweat is something you should outsource—and dignity is found in likes, not labor.
And here’s the kicker: these so-called “illegals” are often more American than the influencers screaming about them on TikTok. They show up. They work hard. They don't spend the day posting side-eye selfies from the back room of a dog-friendly co-working space. They just want to earn a living without being chased down by a government that’s happy to take their money but won’t give them a moment of peace.
The hypocrisy is staggering. Every political cycle, we hear the same line: “We must secure the border.” Yet no one talks about securing the labor force that keeps the economy running. Employers know exactly who they’re hiring. Politicians know exactly who’s working. It’s not a secret—it’s an open-air conspiracy built on denial and exploitation.
The U.S. doesn’t just tolerate undocumented labor—it depends on it. From agriculture to hospitality, construction to caregiving, landscaping to logistics, entire sectors would collapse without this hidden workforce. And still, there is no realistic path to citizenship for the millions who pay taxes, contribute to communities, and risk deportation every day. Instead, they live in a purgatory of convenience: wanted when it suits us, discarded when it doesn’t.
This isn’t about immigration anymore. It’s about economics. The undocumented worker is the perfect neoliberal subject: voiceless, rightless, indispensable. Employers can underpay them. Politicians can demonize them. Bureaucrats can ignore them. And all the while, consumers benefit from cheap groceries, cheap services, and cheap labor.
And yes, they pay taxes—$billions of them.
How, you ask Sports Fans? Many use IRS-issued ITINs (Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers) to file federal returns. Others are hired under false or borrowed Social Security numbers, paying into a system they’ll never benefit from. Their payroll taxes vanish into what the IRS calls the “Earnings Suspense File”—a giant pot of unclaimed contributions the government keeps without question. It's estimated that undocumented workers contribute over $13 billion a year to Social Security alone.
Then there’s sales tax—paid on every dollar spent at the store. Property taxes—paid directly if they own homes, indirectly if they rent. All of it funds the very schools, roads, and services many accuse them of draining.
But they don’t get Social Security. They don’t get Medicare. They don’t get unemployment benefits. They rarely get refunds. And they certainly don’t get to vote.
DACA? A temporary fix for a generation raised in limbo. TPS? A bandage on a broken bone. “Comprehensive immigration reform”? A promise so often repeated it’s become political elevator music—background noise no one intends to act on.
Meanwhile, these “illegal” workers pay billions in taxes, rarely see a refund, and can’t vote for the lawmakers whose policies govern their lives. They are the backbone of the American Dream—just not allowed to dream it themselves.
It’s not just hypocrisy. It’s theft dressed up as pragmatism.
We need their labor but fear their presence. We take their taxes but deny their rights. We call them criminals but rely on their hands to build our homes and pick our strawberries.
It’s the most bipartisan lie in America: that we’re tough on immigration, while silently sustaining an underclass we can’t live without. The left calls it compassion. The right calls it control. But in practice, it’s exploitation—pure and simple.
So, the next time someone tells you undocumented workers are a threat, ask them who made their bed, served their lunch, or took care of their grandmother today.
Chances are, it was someone we call illegal - But treat as essential.
We created this nightmare—then refused to wake up. And if we’re honest, the fix isn’t even that complicated:
This isn’t charity. It’s clarity. It’s the long-overdue recognition that if you’re good enough to raise our kids, feed our families, and hold our economy together—you’re good enough to be here.
And for the record, no influencer has ever scrubbed a floor with that kind of moral authority.
Chapter VIII: The Hypocrisy Olympics
Welcome to the Hypocrisy Olympics, where the events are performative, the policies are decorative, and the winners are whoever shouts “compassion” loudest without having to actually do anything hard. In cities like New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago, sanctuary status isn’t a humanitarian strategy—it’s a marketing slogan with a footnote: “Offer void where inconvenient.”
Let’s take a look at what these urban paragons of virtue have actually done:
What They Have Done (With Taxpayer Money and Hashtag Activism):
What They Haven’t Done (Despite the Self-Congratulation):
Why It Failed—Spectacularly:
What They Could’ve Done (But Didn’t):
Instead, they outsourced the problem to overwhelmed nonprofits, shooed migrants onto buses like lost luggage, and ran ad campaigns pretending everything was fine.
And yet, these same cities scream the loudest when Texas or Florida deports migrants. They hold up “Refugees Welcome” signs at rallies, but never offer up their own address. No room at the inn—but plenty of space for sanctimony.
The Hypocrisy Olympics are in full swing.
And the gold medals? They're given out in press kits.
So the next time you see a big-city mayor declaring, “We are a sanctuary,” ask them if they’ve offered their guest bedroom.
Because the answer, as always, is: “Not one. Not one damn room.”
Chapter IX: The American Delusion – Open Hearts, Broken Systems
America loves a good myth. We pride ourselves on being a nation of immigrants, of open hearts and Ellis Island welcome mats. We tell ourselves that letting 11 million undocumented people stay is about compassion. - It’s not.
It’s about fear. It’s about politics. And it’s about convenience.
We’ve built an entire national delusion where we allow millions to live in the shadows, whisper about “comprehensive reform,” and do absolutely nothing of consequence—because doing something would force us to admit just how much we benefit from this broken system.
Who Benefits from the Delusion?
The Myth vs. the Machinery
We tell ourselves they’re here for the American dream. And maybe they are. But we make sure it’s the kind of dream that comes with an expiration date, an under-the-table paycheck, and no HR department.
We’ve got entire cities saying “No human is illegal,” while running shadow economies dependent on legal limbo. We run background checks and I-9 audits only when it’s politically expedient—or when someone needs a headline.
Even taxes are part of the hypocrisy. Millions of undocumented immigrants pay taxes through Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs). They fund Social Security, Medicare, and infrastructure they’ll never fully benefit from. In fact, the U.S. government holds billions of dollars in “suspense accounts” tied to unmatched or unverifiable Social Security contributions—much of it paid by undocumented workers. We’re talking billions collected, spent, and quietly unclaimed, all while we publicly debate whether these same individuals “pay their fair share.”
The Global Chorus of Cowards
And while we drown in moral theater, not a single country wagging its finger at us—Canada, France, Germany, you name it—has offered to take the 11 million undocumented people we live with every day. None has opened its borders to say, “Send them here, we’ll help.” They clutch their pearls for the press, but zip their immigration quotas behind biometric firewalls.
This is the open secret of global migration: Everyone condemns the U.S. while quietly thanking us for absorbing the humanitarian overflow.
The Truth Hurts
This is a crisis we created. Slowly, then all at once. We deregulated labor. We decimated vocational programs. We priced out young Americans from entry-level jobs. We replaced blue-collar pride with college-debt servitude. We outsourced dignity and then wondered why no one wanted to pick strawberries or mop hospital floors.
We can’t deport 11 million people. And we won’t. But we also can’t pretend our open-heart mythology is anything more than a strategic delusion.
It’s not just broken. It’s designed to stay broken.
What Would Actually Help (But We’ll Probably Never Do)
The longer we pretend, the worse it gets - And pretending is America’s favorite sport.
So maybe it’s time we turned off the stadium lights, stopped playing pretend, and admitted what this is: a crisis, a business model, and a national shame we have the power—but not yet the will—to solve.
Chapter X: Where Do You Belong?
Imagine this: 500 undocumented migrants, no papers, no passports, no formal identity. Where can they go?
The Answer? – Nowhere.
There is no global hotline to call. No nation, not one, says, “Send us your undocumented masses.” No red carpet, no welcome mat, no legal system designed to absorb thousands—let alone millions—of the stateless. Not even the loudest moralists on the international stage are volunteering. They’ll march for migrants on Tuesday and vote to close the border on Wednesday.
This is the open-border fairy tale exposed. Because no matter what flags fly or what speeches soar at the UN, citizenship is a cosmic lottery—not a human right. You’re either born with the right documents, or you’re born waiting for someone to pretend they care.
We talk about “belonging” as if it’s earned through hard work and decency. But the truth? Belonging is bureaucratic luck. A barcode. A stamp. A biometric scan approved by a faceless customs official who skipped lunch and hates their job.
Even the most “welcoming” countries—Canada, Sweden, Germany—have caps, quotas, and waitlists that make the DMV look like Coachella. Australia won’t take you if you arrive by boat (especially if you’re brown). France doesn’t want you if you’re not fluent in French and wearing a secular smile. The UK has outsourced its conscience to Rwanda—because nothing says compassion like air-mailing asylum seekers to a dictatorship. And the U.S.? We’ll let you mow our lawns, raise our children, and build our homes—but ask for legal status and suddenly it’s a national security crisis.
So what happens to the people with nowhere to go? They become shadows. They become headlines. They become numbers in detention databases and names on deportation lists. Or worse—they vanish into the underworld of exploitation, where they’re essential but invisible. The labor is legal, the worker is not. But hey—at least the avocados got picked.
This isn’t a flaw. It’s the system working as designed. Every country needs workers, but no country wants to say it out loud. Every government fears demographic decline, but refuses to absorb the very people who could help. And every nation claims moral superiority while quietly outsourcing the human cost to someone else.
We didn’t build this world to welcome. We built it to sort. To classify. To deny. To smile while stamping “DENIED” in triplicate.
So, the next time you hear someone waxing poetic about a "world without borders," ask them where these 500 migrants can go.
Because until someone answers, the only thing truly borderless is the hypocrisy.
And if you chuckled during that last paragraph? Good. You’re paying attention.
Because this is a dark comedy with real blood. A bureaucratic thriller where the plot twists are written in asylum claims and deportation letters. And the villains? They’re all in nice suits, sipping mineral water, promising reforms… after the next election.
Chapter XI: What Would Frank Do?
Let’s get something straight: this isn’t about left or right. It’s about reality versus press conferences. Because what we have right now isn’t a border policy—it’s a taxpayer-funded improv show with tragic punchlines and no script supervisor. Everyone’s ad-libbing. No one’s solving. So, allow me—Frank, your friendly neighborhood CEO whisperer—to step in and drop a little Veritas into this flaming clown car of dysfunction.
Behold: “Frank’s 7-Point Plan”, just like the Geneva Conventions—only sharper, snarkier, and with actual results.
Frank’s Final Word:
This isn’t a blueprint for utopia. It’s a plan to stop lying to ourselves. Because the real border crisis isn’t about walls or caravans—it’s about political cowardice, moral vanity, and a global PR machine that values sympathy over solutions.
Frank’s Plan won’t win you a Nobel. But it might keep a few million people from being crushed under the weight of our collective nonsense.
Now let’s go build something that lasts longer than the next election cycle.
Chapter XII: The Veritas Way
Let’s face it: immigration policy today is the legislative version of a group project where everyone skipped the meeting and blamed the intern. Politicians hold hearings, activists hold signs, and the people doing the actual work—border agents, caseworkers, and exhausted mayors—are drowning in red tape while the cameras roll. It's not just broken. It’s been repurposed as performance art.
But at Veritas, we don’t do theater. We do results.
The Veritas Way isn’t about winning the news cycle—it’s about building a system that respects borders and brains. That honors compassion without inviting chaos. That understands real sovereignty requires more than slogans, and real humanity demands more than hashtags. It’s part data, part dignity, and all grown-up governance.
So, here’s what we do—The Veritas Way:
The Veritas Way isn’t left. It isn’t right. It’s forward—with a side of grit and a heavy dose of truth. It’s not a fairy tale, and it won’t earn anyone a trophy. But it might keep us from becoming a punchline in our own national story.
So, Sports Fans, next time someone asks what to do about immigration, don’t just parrot a party line or repost a meme. Tell them this:
“Let’s Veritas this thing.”
Because for once, the grown-ups need the mic.
Epilogue: Paging Lady Liberty
There she stands—torch in hand, robe in tatters, mascara running down her cheeks like a washed-up cabaret star who just realized she’s been lip-syncing the same broken tune since 1886.
We built a nation on the poetry at her feet—"Give me your tired, your poor”…—and then we turned it into the world's most ironic punchline. “Come one, come all,” we said—unless you came on foot, or from the wrong hemisphere, or didn’t have a lawyer, Wi-Fi, and a LinkedIn profile ready to go.
We told the world we were a beacon. Then we outsourced the bulb, charged an entry fee, and hired consultants to explain why the light flickers. We built fences taller than dreams, dungeons we called ‘facilities,’ and waiting lists that stretch longer than your average Kardashian marriage. And the world? It watched. Judged. Mocked. And then quietly copied us.
Every border crisis is now a theater production—complete with costumes, smoke machines, and “unaccompanied minors” playing the tragic lead. Meanwhile, Lady Liberty’s face is plastered on protest signs from Paris to Pretoria—as if she’s the poster child for failure and not the hostage of it.
Let’s be honest: she’s tired. Tired of being used. Tired of being shamed. Tired of holding up that damn torch while half the country scrolls Twitter and the other half builds catapults.
And yet… she’s still there. Still waiting. Still daring us to live up to the poetry—not the policy.
Because this isn’t just about immigration. It’s about identity. It’s about honesty. It’s about finally deciding if we’re a nation of headlines or heart.
So, to the Canadian, Australian, and French pundits sipping Napa wine while trashing the U.S. at Aspen panels—spare us the lecture. If we’re so awful, kindly return our scholarships, our stimulus dollars, our disaster aid, and all the profits you’ve made on our dreams. And maybe don’t binge-watch our culture while pissing on our dinner table.
To the critics abroad and at home—if your answer to “how should America change” begins with moral superiority and ends in silence when asked to open your own doors, then step aside. We’re not perfect, but we’re not a dumping ground for your guilt, either.
And to you Sports Fans and to the American people: we are a nation. Flawed, fierce, fragmented—but still one. The divide isn't between left and right; it's between those who benefit from chaos and those who suffer it. The billionaires, bureaucrats, and brand consultants who profit from our polarization will keep milking the outrage until there’s nothing left to burn but each other.
Unless we stop them.
We have to unite—not with kumbaya hashtags or flag-waving denial—but with grit, truth, and a steel-belted spine. Call out the grift. Expose the circus. And when someone sneers, “This country is broken,” you say - “Then grab a damn wrench. We’re fixing it.”
Here’s to Lady Liberty. Still standing. Still daring. And still worth fighting for.
We’ll be waiting—with our love, with our respect - and with Veritas.
FBG
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PS: If this piece made you laugh, nod in agreement, or mutter “he’s talking about me behind my back, isn’t he?”—I’d love to hear from you. Drop me a line at fglassner@veritasecc.com. I personally read and reply to every message—no assistants, no AI, just me (usually with a strong espresso in hand). Whether you’re a board member, CEO, CFO, burned-out executive, investment banker, activist shareholder, client, consultant, lawyer, accountant, ex-wife, one of my beloved twin sons, AI Bot, or just a fellow traveler in the great corporate circus, I welcome the conversation.
Thanks!