What would you do if the US economy hit rock bottom? I mean real rock bottom. Not like the dot-com or housing bust. More like perpetual, long-term, no end in sight economic stagnation where grinding poverty was the norm. If the average wage dropped below half of what it is today. If you were only able to earn 12, 10, or 8 thousand a year no matter how hard you worked. If there was no upward mobility and no prospect for a better life. If your family lived in a house built mostly from pallets and scrap sheet metal and you had to pirate your electricity. If sickness was frequent and medical care unreliable at best. Try to imagine a US like that.
Meanwhile a nearby developed country is doing great. They can’t hire enough workers. Just moving there and doing the same thing you’re doing now will double your income immediately, improve your family housing and health, and provide ample opportunity for moving up over time for both you and your kids. Your good friend did it. Your brother did it. They are living in paradise compared to what your family lives in. Businesses there want to hire you, landlords want to rent to you, your kids want to go there.
Would you stay or would you go?
Would going make you heroic or criminal?
There is no room in a humane society for immigration restrictions.