Multi-Millionaire Pingree Puts Migrants Ahead of Mainers and National Security

The United States is in the middle of a genuine open-borders crisis that is leading us, at best, to the collapse of our already unsustainable welfare state.

At worst, we’re sleepwalking into an unprecedented crime wave and terrorist attacks on American soil.

But for U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, the far left Democrat who has represented Maine’s coastal “from away” population since 2008, the solution is not stronger border security but more migrants and more taxpayer-funded busses to bring them to Maine.

In comments this week, Pingree urged her colleagues to prioritize open borders and freebies for non-citizens over national security and securing the border.

Pingree alleges that encouraging more jobless, homeless, non-English speaking migrants to come to the U.S. — and Maine in particular — will solve a worker shortage.

But there’s no evidence that this is true.

The vast majority of the 5,000-10,000 asylum seekers who have been re-settled in Maine are already eligible for work permits because they’ve been here longer than six months.

If they were solving the workforce shortage, we’d see some evidence of it by now.

The reality is that Maine’s generous welfare system actually creates a perverse incentive for asylum seekers not to work even if they want to and have found viable employment.

In Sanford, for example, hundreds of migrants have been living in housing subsidized by taxpayers. Although some are starting to get jobs at the county jail or various warehouses, they’re discovering that getting a paycheck makes them ineligible for welfare and subsidized housing.

Without taxpayer-funded assistance, they can’t afford to pay rent for the housing their currently occupying.

According to MaineHousing data, the Housing Affordability Index for York County in 2023 was 0.47 — lower than anytime since 2000 — meaning 86.5 percent of households cannot afford a home. The same trends apply to rental units. In 2023, the rental vacancy rate for all of Maine was just 2.9 percent — lower than any year since 1986.

Put simply, migrants who do take jobs will quickly find themselves unable find or afford housing, or keep up with the growing cost of living. You don’t need to be a genius to understand how these perverse incentives will discourage work and encourage long-term welfare dependency.

When it comes to housing for lifelong Mainers and taxpaying U.S. citizens, Pingree has no answers. That’s not her priority. She just wants more migrants flooding her district. The good news for her and her pro-open-borders donors is that illegal aliens are already flooding the country at record levels.

According to federal data, U.S. border agents encountered 1.9 million illegal alien border-crossers in 2021, 2.7 million in 2022, and 3.2 million in 2023. As of April, the number of illegal alien border encounters was already 1.9 million.

These numbers don’t include the illegal aliens who successfully evaded law enforcement as the entered the U.S. illegally.

Unfortunately for the millions of Americans who work and pay taxes, among those illegal aliens are thousands of individuals wanted for serious crimes in their home countries, individuals with ties to transnational criminal organizations, and even bonafide terrorists.

Just this week, eight Tajikistan nationals with ties to an Islamic terror group were arrested in Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia after they entered the country illegally in San Diego.

Members of the brutal Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua are suspected of violent crimes against New York police officers as well as sex trafficking and sophisticated theft rings.

In Michigan, a gang of Chilean migrants have terrorized many of the state’s wealthiest neighborhoods via sophisticated burglaries.

Maine is not immune to the ill consequences of crime enabled by a lack of effective border security.

At the Maine-Canada border within the last year, border agents have encountered illegal aliens with suspected ties to transnational criminal organizations, including four Chinese nationals and 18 Romanian nationals.

Federal authorities have said that many of the Asian foreign nationals operating the sprawling web of illegal drug trafficking sites in Maine have entered the U.S. illegally or are exploiting the American asylum system.

Last year, a well-organized gang of Guatemalan illegal aliens came to Maine from Conn. and proceeded to rob Home Depot locations throughout the state before half of the crew was lugged in Rockland and subsequently deported.

The majority of the illegal aliens and economic migrants claiming to be legitimate asylum applicants are not seeking to prey on Americans through criminal schemes.

But the nonetheless threaten a different kind of calamity.

The mass migration into the U.S. is a totally overwhelming not only our welfare system, but also our court system.

Data tracked by Syracuse University pegs the immigration court asylum backlog for 2024 at 1.1 million cases — up from just 163,451 in 2016.

In Maine, any illegal alien who lodges an asylum claim can immediately obtain the full panoply of welfare benefits, resulting in stretched municipal budgets and higher taxes from Portland and South Portland to Sanford and Lewiston.

It’s no coincidence that the massive property tax increases coming to all of the large municipalities are being imposed as schools are increasingly forced to accommodate non-English speaking students who’ve endured the trauma of illegally entering the U.S.

Maine already has the 3rd highest tax burden of all the States, and if Pingree has her way, that burden will only increase, as working Mainers are forced to pay for her harebrained migrant resettlement scheme.

But she doesn’t have to worry about high taxes, housing affordability, or inflation. Because throughout her time in office, Pingree has amassed a fortune that will help insulate her from the disastrous consequences of the far left policies she supports.

In 2008, she disclosed a modest net worth of between $116,000 and $317,000.

According to her most recent disclosure, she’s now worth as much as $11.7 million.

Mainers would be much better off if she prioritized the economic well-being of her constituents rather than enriching herself.