The flip side of immigration

IMMIGRATION’S FLIP SIDE

Much is written about immigrants in their new countries. Many people take sides with those immigrants who have entered countries illegally, finding excuses for them. It is usually from this point of view that one reads about immigration. Those worthy souls who brave so much to make “a better life”.

In countries the size of the US and France it is easy to feel sorry for immigrants. Understand, we are not talking here about people displaced because of war and disasters and things like that. Here it concerns people who swarm out of their countries for more money.

I am from a very small island in the Caribbean, shared by both French and Dutch 37 square miles in size. I know that Manhattan is just under 23 square miles in size and 1.620.867 people live there. However, Manhattan is part of a greater whole, a whole which feeds itself. Saint Martin grows nothing, and everything is exported. We cannot be compared.

On the Dutch half of the island it is or used to be, easy to get a job, and coming from poverty they build all sorts of shacks to live in. This is not their home, they have come here to get money to send home. On the other half, the French, they have it made in the shade. Government provides everything they need, indeed that is what attracts them to the French side, since because of the high Euro/Dollar rate, there is no work to be had. They get housing paid for, free education for their children and unemployment benefit. To get this all they need do is set foot on French soil.

How do I know that is what brings them? They tell us. They laugh at us. They outnumber us. We are told we have no culture, no identity, no nothing. Yet none of them leave. We hear about all the things their island has and ours lacks, but nobody wants to go back. They live on the Dutch side, get a letter from a friend living on the French side, stating that they live at their address, and proceed to collect unemployment benefits from the French and salaries from the Dutch.

Why did this happen? Because once upon a time our people had to go away to look for work too, and when work became available here we were generous to share. Now we are put in the position of being second-class citizens in our own home.

Natives watch foreigners get government apartments, and are told they can live with their families, their families have land. In no country does everybody own land. And if your parents have a house and five children, how do you share that?

How long will it be before there is a social explosion on this island? Worse of all, what is going to cause it? People have been taking a lot, and are likely to blow up for something that may be considered foolish.