Everyone who comes to CA for example, citizen or not, can get a drivers license and access to a variety of social programs and they are protected by the state against federal prosecution. It's a legitimate concern.

> It's a legitimate concern.

We're in the midst of a pandemic and you still think giving undocumented/illegal immigrants access to social programs is a bad idea? Not doing so would seed clusters of infection that will cross over to citizens without asking to see their papers first. I suspect even the most nativist person in the country would agree that ICE arresting people in the ER would be a terrible idea, based on self-preservation alone.

While you may not agree with it, the idea of discouraging people from lurking in the shadows comes from a place of pragmatism, not kumbaya hippiness. Even red states apply this principle to combat opiate addiction.

We should never have been in a position in the first place where we have to care for illegal immigrants at the expense of our own population. Countries with the most successful response to this situation locked their borders down hard and fast. Now you're talking about illegal immigrants taking up beds in the ER, that's going to be a priceless commodity soon that many American citizens will probably be forced to go without.

The pragmatic thing to do would've been to protect our borders in the first place, both in terms of illegal immigration and restricting travel when the pandemic first began. Now that the situation is completely untenable and there's a massive underclass of millions of untraceable illegal immigrants, the 'pragmatic' thing to do is spend precious resources caring for them (both in terms of healthcare and financially) at the expense of the native population? 'Pragmatic' doesn't seem like the right word considering that line of thought is what caused the problem in the first place.