That's been the program for a long time. Work cheap, evade taxes, and send it back to Mexico where the cost of (rural) living is 1/5th that of the U.S. and one can buy a little business or 2 bedroom hom WITH TOILET for less than 30K.
I heard Camarata (sp?) from CIS on the radio yesterday and he made a good point.
Seems that he and I are about the same age, and he held many of the jobs that I did through high school and college (dishwasher, landscaping, construction, etc). The jobs that illegals have today.
His pay rate analysis was spot-on: from 1975 to about 1980 construction laborers were paid about $8/hr (as I was). Just on an adjusted $$$ basis, laborers should be making $18/hr so today, but in fact illegals are making $10 to $14/hr, which is about 1/2 to 3/4 the labor rate of the late-1970's. Camarata said this is true across the board, in every single job category crowded with illegal aliens.
To me that explains why the whining contractor says "But illegals are the only people I can get, American kids and unskilled don't want to work anymore", and Camarata's reply, (paraphrased) "Because you're underpaying and getting lower quality American applicants. If you paid $18/hr - which is the proper pay scale - you'd get better American applicants."
By the way, the unemployment rate among high school and college kids, as well as the unskilled, low-skilled, and lesser educated native Americans, is huge. Camarata said something like 10 million and 30 million respectively.
I've always tried to explain this to people when they spout the "jobs americans won't do..." line. If you pay a substandard payscale you get substandard applicants (illegals and americans who can't get anything else). Once you raise the wages you're offering you get to pick and choose from a better caliber of applicant.