The current government shutdown drama in Washington is far from unprecedented, but it may be the most absurd of these fights in recent history. On which political hill do President Donald Trump’s opponents in Congress profess themselves willing to die? The right of millions of foreign nationals who illegally entered the country to access taxpayer-funded healthcare services.

While Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries may see themselves as latter-day Jimmy Stewarts nobly fighting for the underdog in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, they are again on the wrong side of an issue that, if they got their way, would put the country on a glide path to its demise.    

The late economist, Nobel laureate, and free market icon Milton Friedman famously warned, “You can have open immigration or universal healthcare, but you cannot have both.” His words are more relevant today than ever. Offering free healthcare to those who enter the country illegally is a recipe for fiscal insolvency and a transparent ploy to import voters favorable to left-wing causes and candidates.

A nation with porous borders cannot sustain universal healthcare without collapsing under the weight of unchecked demand. The United States already spends almost $5 trillion annually on healthcare, with programs like Medicare and Medicaid straining under the burden of serving both citizens and legal residents. Adding millions of illegal aliens to these rolls would explode costs, overwhelm providers, and erode the system’s ability to serve those who have paid into it for decades.

The math cannot be spun any other way. My organization, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, estimates that there are more than 18 million illegal aliens in the U.S., a figure that grew significantly due to the Biden administration’s lax border enforcement. If even half of this population accesses taxpayer-funded healthcare, the cost could easily surpass $100 billion per year, based on per-capita healthcare spending for low-income Americans.

This is not a one-time expense, of course, but a perpetual obligation. Moreover, any return to open borders under a future president would invite an endless stream of new beneficiaries. No nation, no matter how wealthy, can absorb such costs without raising taxes to crippling levels, slashing other essential services, or spiraling into debt. The result? A fiscal death spiral that undermines the economic stability Americans rely on, as well as major effects on global economic and security conditions.

Just a few months before his assassination, Charlie Kirk echoed Friedman’s warning on the existential threat to the nation from offering social services to illegals, saying “You cannot simultaneously have domestic generosity with unruly invasion. They are a contradiction … We are naively then subsidizing our own demise.”

Beyond the numbers, the policy itself is a political gimmick dressed in moral garb. Anti-borders politicians argue that healthcare for illegal aliens is a matter of compassion, but their motives are less altruistic than they appear. By incentivizing illegal migration with free benefits, they create a pipeline of future voters who, through amnesty or lax enforcement, are likely to vote for candidates who support more amnesty, more open borders and more resulting mayhem.

Enacting healthcare for illegals would also be the death knell for the Westernized medical care standards we have come to expect. Flooding the system with new patients would exacerbate existing shortages of doctors, nurses, and hospital beds. Wait times, already a problem in many areas, would balloon, leaving citizens—taxpayers who fund the system—struggling to access care. Rural hospitals, already closing at an alarming rate, would face even greater strain. The quality of care would decline as providers are stretched thin, and resentment would grow among Americans who see their contributions devalued to subsidize those who broke the law to enter the country.

Proponents might argue that denying healthcare to illegal aliens is inhumane, but this ignores the fundamental principle of sovereignty. Nations exist to serve their citizens, not the world at large. Every dollar spent on noncitizens is a dollar taken from veterans, the elderly, or struggling families. The U.S. cannot be the world’s hospital without inevitably collapsing.

The solution is not more pork-filled legislation, but enforcing existing immigration law. Secure borders, manageable legal immigration levels, and a healthcare system prioritized for citizens and legal residents would uphold fairness and fiscal sanity. A government shutdown, while temporarily disruptive, is a small price to pay compared to the long-term devastation of unchecked illegal migration paired with universal healthcare.

Milton Friedman’s warning was not a prediction but a principle: open borders and universal welfare are incompatible. The anti-borders faction in Congress is steering the nation toward insolvency and division, all while cloaking their motives in false compassion. The American people deserve leaders who prioritize citizens, protect the treasury, and reject political gamesmanship disguised as charity. Anything less is a path to national suicide.