Illegal Immigration and Jobs  

Recently, illegal immigration is in the news again as a US Federal
judge ruled that many parts of Alabama’s new law affecting illegal
immigrants is legal.

Not only have illegal immigrants taken jobs from American workers,
but illegal workers have also driven down the wages for many other
jobs.

This is because the millions of American workers who lost jobs to
illegal immigrant workers still need jobs. This competition puts
tremendous downward pressure on wages for the jobs that are left.

The more workers competing for a job will cause the wages for a
job to go down. It is the basic economic law of supply and demand.

The opposite is also true. If no one is applying for a job, the
employer will have to offer higher wages to attract potential
employees. Also, employers may have to pay more for workers to do
some of the less desirable jobs.

If a farmer were willing to pay a living wage, perhaps $15-20 per
hour, the farmer would have no trouble finding American workers
willing to work in the fields harvesting fruits and vegetables.

Sure, a head of lettuce may cost perhaps 10 percent more at the
grocery store, but this is a small price to pay for giving farm
workers a chance to earn a living wage.

American workers will do any job that illegal immigrants do. But
not at such a low wage.

Do we really want the farm workers who harvest our crops, the
restaurant workers who serve us our food, and tens of millions of
other American workers to try to live their lives on $7-10 per hour,
with no health insurance for their families?

But, once illegal workers are allowed to work and drive down the
wages, the businesses that hire illegal workers will have a cost
advantage over their competitors. So, the other businesses must hire
cheap labor to survive.

And our politicians look the other way as our country is being flooded
with millions of illegal immigrant workers, while millions of American
workers are left jobless or working for near-minimum wage jobs.

The result is that we find ourselves in a downward spiral, with a
surplus of American workers begging for jobs, and no chance to join
the middle class in the foreseeable future. And the middle class
itself is beginning to erode as economic blight spreads across our
country.