Politicians from both sides of the aisle are coming to the realization that the United States cannot afford to be the world’s police department. By the same token, we cannot afford to be the world’s innkeeper.
Yet that’s precisely what is happening.
On Monday, Brunswick Maine officials announced the construction of new apartments built specifically to house new migrants — including those who crossed the border illegally. The residents would be allowed to stay there rent-free for up to two years.
On Tuesday evening in New York, nearly 2,000 illegal immigrants were transferred from a massive tent shelter at Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field to nearby James Madison High School, in anticipation of an intense storm.
As a result, the migrants have displaced the students, who were then forced to return to remote learning — something that proved not to work during the two-year COVID shutdown.
One woman shouted at the line of school buses waiting to deposit their load of migrant-passengers.
"How do you feel? Does it feel good?" the woman screamed at the buses. "How does it feel that you kicked all the kids out of school tomorrow? Does it feel good? I hope you feel good. I hope you will sleep very well tonight!"
None of this surprised tech entrepreneur Elon Musk.
"This is what happens when you run out of hotel rooms,” he observed. “Soon, cities will run out of schools to vacate. Then they will come for your homes.”
Too late. That’s already happening.
As the Massachusetts state emergency shelters were nearing capacity last August, Gov. Maura Healey asked residents to consider opening their doors to migrant families.
She said that nearly 5,600 families were housed in the state’s emergency shelter system as of late summer, at a cost of about $45 million a month, and that meanwhile 10 to 30 families were arriving each day.
Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll joined Healey in asking residents to welcome migrants into their homes and businesses.
“Most importantly, if you have an extra room or suite in your home, please consider hosting a family,” said Driscoll. “Housing and shelter is our most pressing need, and become a sponsor family.”
Meanwhile on the other side of the country illegal immigrants aren’t even asking for permission. They’re just taking.
California residents near San Diego reported late last month that their property is overrun nightly by migrants who cross the nearby U.S.-Mexican border, destroy fences, camp on their property, cut down trees for firewood, and leave mounds of trash.
Brian Silvas, who lives on a 78-acre parcel along the border, said that groups of up to hundreds of migrants crossing his property have become so common that his three dogs no longer bark at them.
“This country was built on immigration. I’m fine with that,” Silvas said. “But not like this. This is ridiculous.”
It also proves something Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman said nearly three decades ago.
"It's just obvious you can't have free immigration and a welfare state," he warned.
An analysis by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) revealed that as of June 2023, the cost of illegal immigration to the taxpayer was as high as $163 billion per year.
And that cost will only continue to rise as more people flood across our borders and Bidenomics raises the cost of goods and services even further.
During an April 2018 joint press conference with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, then-President Trump remarked that “We more and more are not wanting to be the policemen of the world.”
He added, “We’re spending tremendous amounts of money for decades policing the world, and that shouldn’t be the priority.”
Biden remarked that his chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan was also about ending America’s role as the world’s cop.
“It’s not about Afghanistan,” he said. “It’s about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries.”
Just as we can’t afford to be the world’s policemen, we can’t afford to be the world’s innkeeper. Property owners can’t afford it, taxpayers can’t afford it, and students can’t afford it.
Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to Newsmax. He is also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and an enthusiastic Second Amendment supporter. Read Michael Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.