I wonder how many of the most dogged anti-Hispanic immigration folks have ever actually known an illegal immigrant? I worked in restaurants throughout college, and most of the dishwashers, prep guys, etc. were illegal Mexicans or Costa Ricans. Most were extremely hard workers who made spit wages doing jobs that, I'm sorry to tell you, most Americans WILL NOT DO! How many of you Freepers would like to wash dishes in a steaming 120 degree dish room that smells of Clorox and food scraps all day, for $5 an hour?
Which would be fine at face value, but if a restaurant owner raised a dishwaher's pay to let's say $15/hr, then the cook who was happy with $12.50/hr will want $20, and the manager who suddenly finds him or herself earning lower wages than the cook will want a raise, and so on and so forth upline until the restaurant manager is forced to raise his prices to handle the increase in his operational cost.