Originally posted by Gatowoman:
Yes, perhaps there is a price to pay: maybe the price of services are artificially lower than what they really are because of the use of illegal immigrants...similar to the "Wal Mart" effect on imported goods from the east (stuff is artifically lower than what it should be) or the price of gas. I think the time is coming when in America gas is no longer cheap, knick knacs from China aren't really all that cheaper...etc. etc.
The premise that the illegal immigrants do jobs that no american wants to do is a fallacy. This argument is offered with no economic context whatsoever. Wages are artificially depressed by having an unending stream of people coming in willing to do jobs at "below market" rates. But make no mistake about it. We are paying dearly for it in other ways: impact on public school system, impact to emergency rooms and hospitals , etc. , etc.
And then there are the "intangibles": "day laborers" ( that's the way they refer to them in the east coast) loitering around the shopping malls , train stations , libraries, etc. I live in a small town in NJ, in the middle of nowhere, and I see it all the time. I used to take my daughter to the library with me at night and let her play in the computer in the "kids section". Well, I can't do that anymore because the computers are now consistently occupied by adult men which are part of these day laborers group. When I brought this to the attention of the Librarian, she shrugged her shoulders.
