Growing up, I was – as I assume you were – inundated with lists of “the benefits of citizenship.” The list was long and capped, naturally, by the fact the United States was the best, strongest, freest nation on the planet.

Being an American was a source of pride. But is it still? Do the benefits of citizenship still outweigh the alternative?

As progressives cheer the dissolution of our southern border and, by extension, our sovereignty, it’s worth looking at the benefits of non-citizenship illegal aliens now enjoy and comparing them to the responsibilities of citizenship.

Most people don’t like paying taxes. But it’s the price of citizenship, and if we don’t we face losing our property and jail time. We also do it because the government has legitimate functions that only it can do and that need to be paid for. It also does way more than it needs to or should, but that’s an argument for another time.

But the people flooding our border haven’t paid taxes and, to be honest, have no real prospects for paying taxes in the future, if they stay.

Most do not speak English, have no education and no real skills to contribute to the economy. No doubt some have potential in the future. But we don’t live in the future, and the total number who will fulfill that potential are almost as rare as unicorns.

Until those unicorns can draft a business plan, they all will be a drain on the economy, an economy that even after five “Recovery Summers” can’t employ enough Americans in full-time positions to return us to where we were before the last recession.

The jobs they take while they await their immigration hearings – and they will take jobs even though they aren’t legally allowed to – will be under-the-table jobs. No taxes will be paid. More importantly, those jobs won’t go to Americans who would have paid taxes on their wages. Medicare taxes will not be paid. Social Security taxes will not be paid. And the employers who hire them, illegally, for cash will save money too, not having to pay their share of taxes or for benefits.

In addition to the jobs they will fill, they will get sick. Everyone, citizen or not, can show up at an emergency room and get health care. The difference is a citizen will get a bill, but an illegal alien will not. A citizen is required to buy insurance; an illegal alien is not. A citizen who doesn’t buy insurance eventually will be forced to pay a fine for not following the law and may have to declare bankruptcy to pay for services received. Illegal aliens can…well, you get the idea.

Citizens who fall on hard times, such as the Obama economy, can avail themselves of the social safety net until they get back on their feet. But illegals can too. Sure, it’s against the law for illegal aliens to receive welfare, but the few documents that are required can be purchased easily on the black market. Identity theft is rampant in the illegal alien community, as it were.

Moreover, many states offer driver’s licenses and in-state tuition to illegals. You, as a citizen, can’t attend a college in another state without paying full-freight, but someone in the country illegally can. Illegal aliens are even boarding domestic flights without photo IDs, but you can’t. Advantage illegals.

As an American citizen you can be arrested for allowing your children to play in front of your house, as happened in 2012, or for allowing them to play in a park without you hovering over them, as happened this month. As an illegal alien, you can pay a human trafficker up to $10,000 to smuggle your child thousands of miles through several countries, have them enter the country illegally, and they’ll get free health care, food, housing and a plane ticket to be reunited with you.

Imagine placing an ad on Craig’s List seeking a stranger to drive your minor child from Los Angeles to St. Louis for cash. Forget not having anyone in St. Louis waiting for them; you’re just sending them to the city. How long do you suspect it would be before a SWAT team and child protective services kicked in your door? A half-hour at most?

That’s what these illegal aliens who’ve sent for their kids to join them here – and many, if not most, of the unaccompanied minors are sent for by their parents, not sent by them – are doing. Their children aren’t being taking into protective custody by social services, the parents aren’t being arrested or even investigated; they’re being reunited with their illegal alien children. And it’s all being done on our dime.

We aren’t there yet, but we’re fast approaching a time when it’s more advantageous to be in the United States illegally than it is to be a law-abiding citizen. If we don’t gain control of our borders and reclaim our sovereignty, we will jump that shark in the next 10 years. The president’s much ballyhooed “comprehensive immigration reform” won’t make a dent in the real problem of punishing citizens but will incentivize law breaking.

We are no longer talking about a situation that can be assuaged by a “Little Dutch Boy” approach. The dike has collapsed, and we’re all wet.