Dude, I’ve always liked you, so maybe this should be a longer conversation. But come on. “Are there no upsides to immigration?” is a radically different question from “Should we drop 20,000 people from a radically different culture in a small Ohio town in a matter of a few years?”

First of all, remember that I’ve been on this issue for months, well before it became viral. You have actual leftists who will say, “look, housing prices have gone up, it’s great for the local residents.” What about the people who don’t own homes? What about the grandparents who do own homes but would like their kids to have a chance to buy a home?

Look at the number of Medicaid recipients who are newcomers. Do you not think that stresses the local hospital system? I have constituents who say they’ve lost their jobs, or been told they won’t be getting a raise, because new migrants are willing to work for cheap. There are homeless people who can’t get homes. Look at the number of ESL students in a small school district–increasing over three fold to nearly 1,000 kids. Do you think it affects the quality of the education for locals when their schools are flooded with a bunch of people who don’t speak the language? I could go on and on.

Again, a longer conversation, but I don’t know why your automatic assumption is that the only reason people are complaining about this is that they have bad motivations. And I cannot stand the condescension directed at all of these people who–on the record–are giving very specific testimonials about how their lives were made worse