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Comment by seneca | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious, in current proposals, would a UBI be limited to citizens only? I'm guessing not, given the "universal" nature of it. If that's the case, I can't say I see support for a UBI gaining wide-spread support, or economic viability, in the US without first securing our boarders. It seems mutually exclusive, given that it would result in an unprecedented flood of economic migrants.

I may be misunderstanding the scope of "universal" in this context. If that's the case, I'm curious what the typical requirements for access are.

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> I'm curious, would a UBI be limited to citizens only? I'm guessing not, given the "universal" nature of it

That's the conclusion you came to because of the word "universal"? Have you watched fear mongering entertainment news lately? You assume that everyone who happens to be in the country gets money? So this will cause the others to invade our perfect utopia that we can't defend without a magical wall. Do tourists who happen to be in the country get money too? I'm curious if illegal immigration has affected you personally in some way.

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.

Andrew Yang’s proposal was targeting UBI at American adults[1] which means citizens.

[1] https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-freedom-dividend-faq/

Thanks for the reference, that's a very succinct explanation. For those on mobile, here's the answer from Yang's plan:

> Every U.S. citizen over the age of 18 would receive $1,000 a month, regardless of income or employment status...

If you're worried about people coming to funnel this money overseas, UBI could be excluded from expatriation of money with deportation/blacklisting from UBI being consequences for sending the money abroad. Otherwise I don't see why a migrant being an "economic" migrant would make much of a difference. The basic premise of UBI is that ultimately that money is going to flow through the economy (it is going to be spent), why does it matter if it is a citizen spending it on a Big Mac or rent versus an H1B migrant versus a lottery visa holder versus an "economic" migrant?

I have never seen a proposal for UBI that is not limited to citizens. You obviously have to draw a line somewhere and obviously you would not give money to tourists. Maybe long term residents could be included though, e.g. those who live 5+ or 10+ years in the country.

That's generally the case. Alaska's UBI program requires that the recipient live in Alaska for the previous calendar year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund#Permanen...

Yang's policy was for citizens only. He equates it by saying citizens are a long term shareholders of the country and thus get a dividend.

They would need some sort of registered paperwork to guarantee that some aren’t being double paid. On Wikipedia it mentions legal residents so my guess is it would extend to work visas too possibly

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