to get through undergrad I worked third shift at Excel Beef in Dodge City, KS. That's when I first encountered the Illegal question...
Our town's story goes like this..
In the 1980's starting wages at our plant were around 12-15.00 an hour.
This was in 1980's money!
It was hard, nasty work but many worked there and provided for their families.
Excel was then staffed by Americans, either Mexican Americans who had lived in Dodge since the railroad came in 1900, or Anglo-Americans.
About Half Mex-Americans, Half Caucasion, with a few Vietnamese.
By the mid-90's when I was there, starting wages had dropped to around 10.00 and hour, and many of the Mexican-Americans had been squeezed out by New "Mexicans from Texas" (wink wink)
Many Anglos at the plant were also squeezed out to Illegals, and the few Anglos and Mex-Americans that remained were in the skilled jobs, supervisors or in office work.
By the late 90's wages were down to around 7.00/ hour and the Old Mexican Americans of Dodge City, the folks who had been part of our community since the turn of the century, were completely gone from the plant they helped build.
In their place were Illegals working for half the wages, now a mix of Illegal Mexicans, Guatamelans, Salvadorans, etc. The Vietnamese packed up and left Dodge due to rising crime and violence.
The Anglos were now only working in a few office jobs, and a few skilled jobs (Electricians, Safety inspect, etc.)But even these skilled trades were being taken over by the Illegals who had come during the early 90's. They would do the same job for half the pay.
So today Dodge has 3 meat packing plants, each employing several thousand workers. In a town of 30,000, at least 6,000 are employed by the Corporate Beef Industry.
A reasonable estimate is that over half of these workers are illegal. And that's being conservative...I'd put it closer to 80%.
During the 1990's, to accomodate our new friends, Dodge built four (yes FOUR) new schools, two new jails, raised property taxes double digits every year, and the city now looks like Juarez on a bad Friday night. Spanish is the main language of our school system, my niece is in fourth grade and only reads Spanish, because that's what she has been taught in. She and one other little girl are the only native English speakers in her class. (I wish to hell I was making this up!)
People who can, simply get The Hell Out of Dodge and never look back.
This story has been repeated in Garden City, Liberal, and all over Kansas.
It's a damn shame....
Gang officers in small town schools. New jails built; a Spanish-only PUBLIC elementary school in Marshalltown Iowa. And, my personal favorite: Marshalltown had to pass a city law making it illegal to slaughter chickens in the street (storm sewers made a nice place for the blood to run, apparently).
My classmates' parents carpooled 80 miles round trip to work at those jobs in the 80's...decent lower middle-class jobs.
Gives total lie to the "jobs American's won't do," myth.
And stunningly, a pound of hamburger wasn't $15.00.