Agreed. OTOH, I'm not willing to call these guys "dishonest" en masse. A lot of small-scale agriculture businesses figure they'd go under if they had to pay "American" wages and benefits -- and they probably would go under, too.
Plus which, it's really pretty difficult to get all that upset about a group of people (immigrant laborers) who are willing to come up here and work very hard for not much money. There's a lot to admire about folks who're willing to do that -- and most illegal immigrants fall into that class.
Another question: why is this "A Problem" in the first place? What problem are we supposed to be solving? There doesn't seem to be any agreement on that. The "build a wall" folks are addressing an entirely different problem than the "guest worker" crowd, even if both say they're trying to deal with illegal immigration.
My take on it is that fines and punishment probably should not be the first steps. Rather, I think it's probably best to be able to know who's here, and where they're working; IOW, I think some version of the guest worker program would probably go a long way toward addressing the issues -- and it'd certainly work better than the cat-and-mouse game being played right now.
A guest worker program is a very bad idea. It instantly creates a sub-class of citizen who will immediately be insisting on equal rights. Very short-sighted.
Probably. I suppose a lot of drug dealers and pimps would go out of business if they were forced to obey the law, too. But that's the way it works.
On the bright side, without the competition from outlaw producers, the honest businesses will thrive.
Plus which, it's really pretty difficult to get all that upset about a group of people (immigrant laborers) who are willing to come up here and work very hard for not much money.
If you want to understand why this is a problem, read some of the immigration threads here at free republic. Hardly a week goes by without dozens posts of posts by people who see clinics closing, and cities infested with immigrant gangs and crime.
Most of the illegal immigrants may be only interested in working, but most is not good enough. If 10% of our population is hard-core criminals, then our nation is in serious trouble.
The other thing is that the children of illegals are unlikely to become productive citizens. Because they are raised in a criminal culture outside the law they will become dependent on welfare and crime.
The riots in France are a good example of what happens to a nation that depends on importing cheap foreign labor. In the long run it is very expensive.
The proof of this is the severe fiscal and social problems in the state of California which has been infested with illegals for decades. Productive people are leaving that state as fast as the illegals are settling there.