Agreed. I am curious to what you think a realistic solution to this would be - many say that fencing and patrolling the border is not practical. I don't know...
---As I think the biggest PROBLEM is that we don't control the border from a defensive standpoint, I'm all for that fencing and patrolling. Even if we do go after the root cause (which most consider to be easy work for illegals in the U.S.), we will not have solved the real concern, which is that noncitizens can cross the southern and northern borders far too easily.
I'm thinking that the best way to combat the problem is to allow the state governments to cut off social services to illegals - with a constitutional amendment if necessary. I am not usually one to want amendments, but it seems like the courts are interpreting the constitution as giving non-citzens the same rights as citizens. The next step would be to go after employers. I know this resembles the failed war on drugs, but the number of employers are much smaller and easier to find since the illegal workers are in public.
---I'm with you. The difference, as you say, is that there is little to no way for illegal workers to get hired if the known illegal hiring corners are regularly busted, the agents who mule them into large employers are tossed into jail for a long term, and the large employers that they depend upon to look the other way are, too. Hiring illegal workers is not something you can do in the privacy of your bedroom, and illegals have to have some place to congregate to be picked up by their employers.
I also don't buy the "they do jobs that American's won't do" line. Who did the jobs before illegals?
---No kidding. It's as if no Americans ever picked a crop or worked in assembly plants. And it's not like they wouldn't do it for a wage that's better than illegal wages. The real problem here is that American companies consider themselves to be serving the world market now, and having to compete on that scale means they try for the easy cost savings that international and illegal labor promise. Never mind that hiring illegals slams hell out of our wages and labor standards--those companies can sell competitively to foreign markets. /derisive tone
You're right.
They move their factories overseas to where the cheap labor was and they support open borders so they flood the labor pool and drive down the wages of the jobs that are left.
Even those that are in skilled professions are only given a temporary stay.
If they can replace machinist, pipe fitters,welders, mechanics,sheet metal workers who require extra schooling and a two to four year apprenticeship then they can replace the white collar skills as well.
A lot of the white collar jobs are easier to outsource, or offshore physically.