What Kuwait Can Teach The US About Immigration

The scorpion in our guard shack was the size of my palm, and the Kuwaiti soldiers laughed when I jumped back. It was 110 degrees at Ali Al Salem, Air Force Base and we were three hours into drinking tea and talking about money. That's how I learned that my Kuwaiti counterparts lived in a nation with radically different expectations for what the government should provide for its residents and citizens.

Every Kuwaiti citizen gets free healthcare for life. Education through PhD, paid for entirely. Subsidized housing and zero-interest loans. Cash bonuses for getting married, cash payments for each child. Government jobs that pay multiples of private sector wages. Retirement with full pension at 50.

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Kuwait funds this through two mechanisms. The first is public ownership of oil reserves, rather than private companies. This means that the profits benefit the public and accountability is with everyone rather than just the shareholders. Kuwait, the UAE, and Norway all use this system of public ownership of natural resources and investment in a sovereign wealth fund. The other primary funding stream for these policies is foreign workers, who make up 70% of the Kuwaiti population. Meanwhile, getting a work visa is straightforward. Kuwait needs workers. But citizenship requires proving your family was there before 1920. Workers from India, the Philippines, and Egypt spend decades in Kuwait. Their children are born there, speak Arabic, and know no other home. But they'll never qualify for citizenship. These workers make up most of the private sector workforce. This includes engineers, doctors, construction workers, teachers, and the service industry. They participate in the economy like anywhere else, working, renting, shopping, living their lives. And these factors create an economy that runs on both public sector revenue and private sector activity, which together fund the comprehensive benefits for citizens.

The foreign workers in this system often earn substantially more than they would in their home countries, with many employers providing housing and health insurance. An Indian engineer might earn $2,000 monthly in Kuwait compared to $500 in Mumbai. A Filipino nurse can make more in Kuwait than in Manila. They send remittances home, save money, and build careers.

They'll never be Kuwaiti citizens, but they came for economic opportunity, not citizenship. The arrangement works because everyone understands the terms. Workers get jobs and wages above what they'd earn at home, Kuwait gets the workforce it needs, citizens get their benefits, and no one's confused about what they're signing up for.

What made this system familiar was that I was experiencing America's own version of it. The military is our two-tier system, just less honest about it.

Healthcare through military Tricare meant no deductibles, no network restrictions, no coverage denials, and on base medical services that don't even have billing mechanisms. Basic Allowance for Housing scaled with local costs, while the commissaries sold groceries for about 18% less than off base stores, we also had tax-free shopping at base exchanges. The GI Bill covered college tuition plus living expenses. Free gyms, pools, recreational facilities. And after twenty years of that you can get a pension for life.

Military spouses didn't have to enlist to get the same healthcare. When they need surgery, they pay nothing. Friends with children born with chronic conditions received hundreds of thousands in medical care without a single deductible. These benefits aren't controversial within the military community. They're recognized as essential and moral services to provide.

Politicians who champion military healthcare call universal healthcare "socialism." They defend military housing allowances while opposing public housing investment. They insist military families "earned" these benefits through service.

Military spouses sacrifice plenty. They endure deployments, frequent moves, career disruptions. Military kids grow up with parents who often have to be gone for months on end, along with frequently changing schools. They've earned those benefits through real sacrifice. But here's the thing: if we can recognize that military families deserve healthcare simply by being part of the military community, we've already accepted that association and membership can justify benefits. We've already decided that being connected to service is enough.

So why stop there? If a military spouse earns healthcare by supporting someone who serves, what about the teacher's spouse? The nurse's spouse? If military kids deserve care because their parent serves the country, what about kids whose parents serve communities? We've proven we can extend benefits beyond the person who "earned" them. We just choose to draw the circle small.

Kuwait doesn't wrestle with these contradictions. Their position is clear. Oil wealth belongs to citizens, and citizens get benefits. Non-citizens don't. The government exists to maximize citizen welfare using national resources. Foreign workers are economic inputs, and not members of the same social contract as citizens.

Kuwait treats oil as a national resource that should benefit citizens. America lets ExxonMobil and Chevron extract our oil, pay minimal taxes, receive handouts via subsidies, and post record profits while Americans go bankrupt from medical bills. Alaska gets this partially right, cutting citizens annual checks from oil revenues. But imagine if America treated all natural resources like Kuwait does. Imagine if oil profits funded retirements at 50 instead of stock buybacks.

American conservatives argue immigrant workers strain public resources and depress wages. Kuwait demonstrates the opposite. Their immigrant workers are excluded from most citizen benefits while generating wealth that funds citizen benefits.

During my deployment, Kuwaiti soldiers often discussed business ventures they were starting with government support. Meanwhile, American soldiers might be overheard stressing about how they'd get healthcare if they left the armed forces.

The fiscal arguments against universal benefits in America collapse under scrutiny. Military healthcare actually costs less per person than Medicare while delivering comprehensive coverage that no politician questions. When political will exists, America funds comprehensive benefits without question. Add in the hundreds of billions in profits from American oil and gas that could fund benefits instead of enriching shareholders, and the "we can't afford it" argument evaporates entirely.

Both Kuwait and the US military prove the same point. Governments can successfully provide comprehensive benefits to designated populations without economic collapse. These systems improve lives, enable productivity, and effectively reduce personal financial catastrophe. The real question is just who qualifies for membership and who controls benefits from resources.

America can afford universal benefits, research actually shows it is less costly than our current system. Meanwhile, Kuwait proves immigrant labor can fund such systems rather than drain them. Alaska, Norway, Kuwait, the UAE, all prove that natural resource wealth can fund citizen benefits instead of corporate profits.

The scorpions in our guard shack that day weren't the only thing that made me jump. It was realizing that Kuwait had solved the puzzle that oligarchs pretend is impossible. The framework already exists for sustainable systems where citizens thrive, workers benefit, and the economy grows. We have all the same tools, more oil, more wealth, a military system that proves government benefits work, now we just need the political will to make it happen.

If you found this article worthwhile, check out my book

Conservatism: America’s Personality Disorder

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