let me answer that question. For many years people who pay attention to the tv have been systematically mis-led on the illegal aliens in our economy. I live in arizona where we've been inundated with illegal aliens for more than 20 years. I've worked a lot of years in the construction industry. So, I've viewed it first-hand and in my younger days competed directly with illegals for jobs.
It was a huge myth the media successfully sold people for a long time that illegals work for under the minimum wage or for very low wages. This may have happened in some cases. But it has never been the norm. The norm is that they just work regular jobs at regular wages. Back in 1979 they had illegal aliens here working at a nuclear power plant construction project at $14/hour. With inflation that'd be around $30/hour now. All wages for blue collar construction people have declined in real terms dramatically since 1980.
Illegal aliens have networks of people, it's an incredible network in fact. It includes people who go to the border to get people. It includes houses that hold people temporarilly as they travel across the country. I have a neighbor who told me his sister works as a coyote on the weekends for extra money. I've met her.
If you're plugged into this underground network, then you can buy all the documents you need to work in the job market. The US government requires every employer to check documents upon hire. The US government does not require that the employer even make a phone call or modem inquiry to see if the document is real or not. So, the illegal just get fake docs and then they are legal to hire. The employer must merely photo-copy the document to prove they checked. Fake docs are said to be very affordable. Fake docs I mean driver's license, social security card, green card. These things are ubiquitous.
So, I've worked a lot for one big construction subcontractor that has 7,000 employees in 25 cities. I was their programmer. So, I know they have people on staff with duplicate social security #'s. That means the people who issued the fake doc gave the same # to 2 people, that's what that means. The clerical people are required to check your driver's license before they give you your check. They told me about some times when people come in to get their check and they have to check their own driver's license before they know their name. Also, people will come in to get a job and they don't have docs. Then they ask diligently what docs they need, then they come back in 2 hours with obviously brand new docs.
So, if you're an illegal alien, the road to get jobs is paved for you by others before you and the employers will welcome you, the people who make the fake docs for you are easily available along the networks the illegals travel in. That's how it is. Illegal aliens are very ordinary people, very ubiquitous. Their kids make up very large portions of many schools. They go to hospitals and get medical care routinely.
If you defined people as being 'mexican' if they or their ancestors were in mexico in 1970, then a significant portion of mexico, perhaps 20% or more, has already migrated to the US and become a part of the US. We're not going to send people home who have even 2-3 years inside the US. So, the migration just continues.
The only solution is what reagan wanted. We give them amnesty, but at the same time we truly force the employers tohire only legal people from now on. Instead, congress just gave them amnesty and an enforcement mechanism that was purposely made dysfunctional. Reagan simply wanted the enforcement mechanism, the checking of documents by employers, to be something that really worked. Reagan wanted them to have to do like a store clerk validating a credit card. A store clerk can check in 30 seconds to see if your credit card is good or bad. Reagan wanted that type of a system with the documents that the employers are required to check. Congress wouldn't give him that. But congress did require the employers to check the documents. We knew back in 86 when the law was made that it was going to lead to a huge market for black market documents and that is exactly what has happened.
But illegal work regular jobs and have regular lives. It is a complete myth that they work at sub-standard jobs. You find them as store clerks, sometimes office jobs even.
Where I live there's dozens of mexican men on the street corner looking for jobs 7 days a week. Just 5 years ago if anyone did that they'd be arrested in this location because it was against the city law. They changed the law just for the mexicans though. In this same location, I checked in a database, there have been individuals imported through h1b visa program to work as carpenters, masons and many other manual labor jobs.
So, the american people are just kept in the dark. The media purposely doesn't want us informed on this issue and on many others.
The cash jobs exist, the guys at the street corner will all work for cash. But there are many non-mexicans standing on the corners now also to do that. They will work for decent wages, just cash. But the norm is they work regular jobs with a paycheck.