Parenting & Family Quote by Rick Perry

Perry’s line is a politician’s two-step: moral indictment followed by fiscal threat. He opens by trying to make the opposing position socially uninhabitable. “I don’t think you have a heart” isn’t an argument so much as an attempted expulsion from the category of decent people. The phrasing is personal, almost conversational, which helps it land like common sense rather than ideology. He frames the children as passive cargo - “brought there by no fault of their own” - to sever them from the legal and cultural anxieties that swirl around immigration debates. Guilt by association is replaced with innocence by circumstance.

Then he pivots to a colder register: educate them “because they will become a drag on our society.” Compassion is offered, but it’s immediately tethered to self-protection. The subtext is clear: even if you don’t care about them, you should care about what they’ll cost you. That move is strategic in a state-level context, where education funding is a bread-and-butter issue and where Republican politics often demands toughness on immigration. Perry tries to carve a lane that looks humane without sounding permissive: schooling as prevention, not welcome.

It also smuggles in a quiet premise: the state can’t opt out of these kids’ futures. They’re already here, already part of the social math. The heart line shames; the “drag” line disciplines. Together they create a moral-and-economic pincer meant to make refusal feel both cruel and stupid.