[philman_36]

This is about helping companies that want to keep the price of labor down. Rather than pay a decent wage, they would rather uphold an irresponsible immigration policy.
I find such arguments illogical. If the bill passes and the illegals are legal then federal wage laws kick in and there is no more cheap labor.
And you can bet your bottom dollar that with all of the activism from the various Hispanic groups there will be plenty of legal help with ensuring that the newly legal get those federally mandated wages.
No, cheap labor is not a logical explanation. In fact, it's counterintuitive.

[Alberta's Child]

I'm not sure if I agree with your logic, but you raise a good point there.

All of the financial forces associates with illegal immigration -- particularly the latent demand for cheap and unregulated labor (I believe the latter is more important to employers, based on the fact that illegal aliens can actually command pretty high cash wages where I live) will still be in place even if 10-20 million illegal immigrants are "legalized" in this country. Once employers are forced to incur things like payroll taxes for these people, the whole process is going to start all over again with another generation of illegal immigrants.

[Aetius]

The cheap labor explanation still makes sense even if they are all legalized. Yes, the minimum wage laws would then apply, but all that would do is set a floor level to which wages could fall. There would likely still be downward pressure on wages even if there was a limit as to how far they could fall.

[EEDUDE]

“No, cheap labor is not a logical explanation. In fact, it’s counterintuitive.”

I agree with you, and so without enforcement of the borders and immigration laws the NEXT wave of illegals will begin shortly after all the ones here are “regularized” and are no longer cheap.

But I think you give Congress entirely too much credit for being logical.

They are five dollar whores.

[etradervic]

I find such arguments illogical. If the bill passes and the illegals are legal then federal wage laws kick in and there is no more cheap labor.

It has nothing to do with minimum wage laws.
It is a matter of supply and demand. If you increase the supply of cheap labor, you keep the cost of such labor low. As an example, if you needed to pay $12 an hour to maintain the required workforce, with an increase in supply of such labor, you may just need to spend $10 an hour to field the same labor.