Already at stratospheric levels, your federal government costs have gone up $3.7 billion, the amount U.S. President Barack Obama wants to address the massive influx of more than 50,000 unaccompanied minors. This new imposition on embattled American taxpayers flows from the ruling-class notion that the United States must be wet-nurse to the world.

If anybody in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador happens to be poor and living in fear of crime, that is unfortunate. It does not follow, however, that those persons should leave their native countries and come to the United States. Better choices include the Central American nations of Costa Rica, and Panama, and South American nations such as Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia. Or consider Cuba, which in 2011 Newsweek proclaimed as one of the best countries in the world to live. In similar style, CNN has hailed Cuban health care as a model for the United States, so the kids would get better care. There would be no language barrier in any of those countries or in Mexico, but Mexico simply abets the trafficking of minors to the United States. The USA remains the default destination because of the welfare state and the prospect of jobs.

Hondurans, Guatemalans, and Salvadorans could have more jobs at home if their own countries would strengthen property rights and adopt free-market reforms. Those nations have no incentive to reform as long as they can ship their troubles to the United States, the welfare wet-nurse to the world. But will the $3.7 billion really help the kids?

As Steven Dennis notes in Roll Call, about half the money goes toward “beefed-up enforcement and court proceedings aimed at accelerating the deportations of the children and adults.” A full $1.8 billion goes to “the Department of Health and Human Services to pay for the care of children and families while they await proceedings.” The State Department gets $300 million “used in part to advertise in Central American countries to tell parents not to send the children to the United States and that they will not be allowed to stay if they arrive.” That should do the trick, all right.

So listen up, you 50,000 unaccompanied minors, here’s the way it works in the USA: Despite the humanitarian rhetoric, bureaucrats get first dibs on the dough. They are number one, and like American taxpayers, you ain’t even number two.