Most of 'em are paid by check, you should see the lines at the local casinos here. Standing in line with their whole family.
And I'm sure the employers involved would rather not be involved in an obvious attempt to circumvent laws. The small ones maybe, but most of the casinos here in town employ illegals. So do the electrical contractors, telephone contractors, etc.
These are the jobs that american's don't want. If it's anything I love it's them working at MY trade for $8 an hour.
The other day I asked one of that crew for a circuit, and was told, "Wait please, I don't speak english, I'll go get the american." !?!
I hear that. I was priced out of my trade (carpentry) in this CO mountain town about eight years ago. Most of the people in the trades that I've known over the years have left. Not many working class jobs left for Americans here.
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....