Squatters

Squatters

Imagine that you have a really nice, upscale apartment complex.  You currently have a few units available for rent.  You have many applications to choose from to fill those two units and to receive your monthly rent money.  

While you are looking at applications and deciding which applicants to have come in for an interview the janitor comes to your office in a panic.  He informs you that one of the rooms has people living in it even though you know that it's supposed to be vacant.  He said that it appears that the lock has been jimmied and that the people that moved in to the room also moved in a whole bunch of stuff.

You immediately hurry to the apartment that is supposed to be vacant and knock on the door.  From the other side of the door you hear a voice that says they will not open the door and that they now live here.  You tell them what the rent is and ask if they plan on paying.  They say they have no intention of paying rent but they will stay here as long as they can get away with it.

You call the police only to find that you must file a complaint.  You go down to the courthouse to find out the hoops that you must jump through to get them out of your apartment.  While you are jumping through hoops they are using the water and the electricity for free that you provide to the apartment building.  They have no respect for the place because they are not paying rent and so they throw their garbage out the window onto the street below.  You are also aware of a strange smell coming from the apartment.

You worry about the condition of the place after they vacate while the court worries about their rights and takes weeks and sometimes even months to decide that they must be removed from the apartment by force and you receive the right to evict them.  By the time they are vacated and you have the apartment back, it is trashed.  They've left behind their broken furniture and dirty dishes.  The carpets are stained and the walls have holes in them.  They are now out of your apartment but you have no monetary compensation for the time that they were there or the mess they made.  You have to put your own money toward cleaning up the apartment and preparing it for somebody who will actually pay to live there.

Sounds terribly unfair right?  Something that you think we should change?

Well, this is not actually a story about an apartment complex and some squatters, it is a story about the United States and illegal immigrants who commit a crime by coming in to our country without going through the proper legal channels.

Now that you know the truth, some of you will probably say, oh, but it's a different situation with immigrants.  You'll conveniently leave out the illegal part when you mention the word immigrants.  But that doesn't change the fact that some people come here unlawfully without following the proper channels.  And yes, I realize that they are not all dangerous criminals, but they still are committing a crime.  The United States has empty apartments, and we're happy to have people move into them, but we want them to do so legally by applying and getting approval.  Then, after they've applied, gotten approval and moved in, we expect them to pay 'rent' so that the rest of us don't have to suffer by paying it for them through our taxes.