In this sort of conversation it is often noted how hardworking illegal Mexicans and Guatemalans and others from poor nations are. Why would that be?
I think it’s very simple. When the illegals come to the US from dirt poor nations with little opportunity for them, even a minimum wage job in the US will increase their standard of living five to ten fold or more. Of course they are motivated. They go from having almost nothing to having many times more than they could have in their home nations.
That’s the incentive for their hard work. Give an American a job that increases their standard of living even two or three fold and you’d seen similar motivation. But for the lower paying jobs in the US, welfare or other benefits provides them as much, and actually more when you consider Medicaid benefits than working those lower paying jobs.
So, any illegal increases his standard of living many fold with a low paying job in the US. Many Americans would decrease their standard by taking a low paying job.
The solution is to end illegals working in the US, allow the wages to rise, then have more real welfare reform that ends most welfare when there are jobs available.
They never talk about the strange diseases (many formerly eradicated here once, horrible criminal acts (DUI deaths, rapes-many many, murder, etc.), public service costs, school costs, buses, public transportation, and all the FEDERAL benefits they can often get. I agree. Heavily punish the employers and make it stop. Prices will rise, but the other costs they force us to pay will end.
They also pass on to the rest of us the costs of things they wouldn't have anyway, but can access here, like health care.
It's a variation of what I call "Mall Wife Syndrome."
The clothes stores in the malls rarely pay enough to outfit their workers in the style of clothing the store demands of it's employees, let alone support their households, too. So what they do is give discounts on clothes to their employees. That way they attract many housewives looking for something to do into taking jobs where they get discounts on clothes they like, and a little bit of spending money, too.
Trouble is, when you analyze the cash flow of the employees households, the main breadwinner is actually supplementing the cost of maintaining a worker for the clothing store.