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"In most major metropolitan areas I suspect that this is a bit of a myth. Illegals working construction, I would guess, are getting paid a lot more than minimum wage."

No, not a "myth" so much as simply not fully expounded. By registering illegals and their employers, you remove the sub-legal wage incentive for hiring illegals. In my brief post, I broadly used "minimum wage," but in your more specific post, "union scale" might suffice.

Currently unregistered, anonymous illegals aren't being paid union scale in urban areas, which is why they are being hired in the first place. Register them with the government, register their employers with the government, and suddenly the employer has to choose between hiring a legal American at union scale (for your construction situation) or an illegal at union scale.

But you see, by removing that wage incentive you actually make real progress against the core problem of the incentive to immigrate here illegally...and in my opinion most of those who are the loudest against making such progress are those who really don't want to see our situation be improved, or gasp...solved.

In other words, they oppose President Bush's plan because they know it will work. They know that illegals will register under that plan and that employers will then hire less and less of them due to the wage incentive disappearing.

"In other words, they oppose President Bush's plan because they know it will work. They know that illegals will register under that plan and that employers will then hire less and less of them due to the wage incentive disappearing."

Hogwash. A retired INS agent disagrees with you, plus about 85% of the public. They are not going to give up free public services to start paying taxes!

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0412/28/ldt.01.html

Well, my next guest is concerned about a guest worker program that would legalize millions of illegal immigrants working in the country. He says the current proposals are not practical and pose a security risk. Michael Cutler is a retired 30-year veteran with the Immigration and National Service. He spent most of his career as a criminal investigator and intelligence specialist. And thanks very much for being with us, Michael.

PILGRIM: Why is this proposal not practical? Many think it is practical, get everyone registered, know who's here. It seems very practical.

CUTLER: You won't know who's here because of the crush of humanity showing up at immigration we're going to wind up having to process millions of applications and basically the people at that desk are going to have to take the person's words for who they claim to be. My concern is they are going to wind up giving false names and possibly even circumvent no-fly lists and watch lists at borders so they can enter the United States even though if their real identities were known, they'd be barred from entry and be barred from taking airplane flights.

PILGRIM: So what's your suggestion? We shouldn't register them at all, just let them stay, or register them back in their own countries? What's a more practical solution to this?

CUTLER: In a matter of speaking, we should register them back in their own countries. And this would discourage illegal immigration. If ultimately decide we need guest workers, and I don't know that we do, then we should have them file the applications from back home where we could more properly screen them and discourage people from running the border in the hopes that if they get here, they'll be able to stay.

The other problem we have is right now we're not able to prevent employers from hiring illegal aliens because you've only got 2,000 agents to lend integrity to this process. How do we plan to lend integrity to a guest worker program where these folks are supposed to leave after three years? We don't have the manpower to go out and attempt to make them leave. And we won't even know for certain that they're showing up on the jobs that they claim they're coming to go to work at.

PILGRIM: Michael, we don't have the manpower to actually supervise what's going on now. And you've been in this so long, for so many years. Do you have a solution that you can come up with?

CUTLER: Well, I think, again, that if we do a guest worker program, we need to have these folks apply from their home countries. You know, when the president gave a speech back in January, he talked about a guest worker program, and that translated the next day, according to the border patrol, in a surge of illegal aliens running the border. So the reality is all this does is to encourage more illegal immigration.

And the bureau that's charged with adjudicating these applications have massive problems right now. Mr. Aguirre, who runs the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, that's an arm of the Homeland Security Department, has said that each day, his people have to adjudicate 30,000 applications and issue 20,000 green cards. And right now they have a backlog of over 4 million applications. How do they plan to deal with this tidal wave of applications that are sure to hit the immigration offices around the country?

PILGRIM: Here's what President Bush said recently. We want our border patrol agents chasing crooks and thieves and terrorists not good-hearted people coming here to work. He seems to say, we should focus on people who are trying to come into this country illegally who are terrorists. Do you not think that's a good approach?

CUTLER: I think in principle, it's a great idea. But the problem is, what does a terrorist or bad guy look like? You know, I often like to ask people, what do you think a terrorist does two days before an attack? More than likely he goes to the job he's been holding down for the past five years or attending the school that he's been going to for the past three or four years in an effort to hide in plain sight. We don't know what someone's intentions are when they show up claiming that they're here looking for work.

You know, I wish we had a crystal ball or some kind of a machine that would enable us to see into somebody's heart. And it's all well and good to talk about wanting good-hearted people. But making it reality is something entirely different, then I would challenge anyone that thinks we can do that to show me by what process we can know what somebody intends to do.

PILGRIM: With all your years of experience, we certainly take what you say to heart. Thanks for joining us this evening, Michael Cutler.

Again, I think that your premise is wrong, at least in the construction industry. Suppose the situation were different - that the number of skilled Americans willing to work on construction jobs is inadequate to the demand. After all, this is not unprecedented in history which is why we brought in the Irish and the Chinese.

You forget - the middle class dream in America is to send your children to college to learn a profession, not to work steel on a construction site. It isn't just about wages. Hell, a guy working steel at 400 ft probably gets paid a lot more than I do. I am not going to sign up.