I know there's a labor pool for unskilled jobs, but the problem is that a lot of it doesn't want to work. This is even true in the case of jobs that are not low-paid, or that are low-paid at entry (as are most jobs) but then rise to a very respectable wage fairly quickly. Heck, most teachers earn less than a skilled bricklayer; there's such a shortage of bricklayers that now a lot of architects and landscape architects are redesigning their projects here to eliminate brick because it's impossible to get it done.
As far as really unskilled labor jobs go, I heard one loser ex-con here, quitting after two days on a roofing job, say the work was too hard and it was a job only for Mexicans. It was $10.00 an hour, btw, which is not a high wage, but certainly decent for an unskilled laborer. Of course, the Mexicans do take these jobs, stay on them for six months or so until the project is finished, and then head home with thousands of dollars in their pocket.
A family member spent ages trying to fill a truck driver position at a non-profit for which she works because none of the candidates had driver's licenses (even though there's absolutely nothing preventing them from reading the book or going to the driver's ed classes and getting a license). One of them got infuriated when he was requested to provide his license for insurance purposes and even threatened her. Of course, it turned out he didn't have one and had never had one. Why not? He couldn't even do that little bit?
I think it's a double-sided problem. We have a lot of people in the US who have been brought up in the welfare culture and the society of irresponsibility and are incapable of getting off their backsides. We also have employers who are benefitting by being able to shave dollars off of benefits, etc. because they know that the Mexicans are never going to be around long enough to collect them and will not complain about anything they do. Also, it benefits the governmment, because many illegals have fake SS numbers into which money is theoretically paid - nobody ever seems to match up whether this is a valid number, for some reason - but of course it is never paid out in benefits.
I am in favor of a guest worker program (with significant restrictions, such as a requirement that all "guests" learn English, that Mexico agree to repatriate them if they commit crimes, etc.) because I think it would level the playing field. If these workers have the ability to leave whenever they want and complain about unjust treatment, etc., then they will be like US workers, so the employers won't have that advantage any more. On the other hand, I still don't know what's going to make productive workers out of the native-born folks who spend all day standing around parking lots drinking beer or waiting for their grandmother to get her Social Security payment so she can turn it over to them. So maybe the situation wouldn't change that much anyway. Sigh. Sorry to sound so cynical. Just based on observation.
I live in an area that is 95% hispanic. Our unemployment rate is always in the double digits. About 9 out of 10 people use food stamps here. The government pays over 75% of ALL the health care here. We even got preferential treatment from the Republicans by putting a BILLION in the medicare bill for our hospitals. Yeah, they sit on the couches here too and collect welfare but they watch the novellas. The teenagers don't like to work either so many of them join gangs. The drop out rate in school is pretty high here.
It looks like there is not too much difference in any part of the country anymore.
I doubt we'll enforce and deport any better than we do now. So we will get a huge number of serfs with guest worker passes (who you naively think will obey the terms of these passes) and the same (or greater) number of illegal alien invaders who melt into ethnic communities, who we don't deport