There are times when illegal immigration has been a problem in the past. I’m pretty sure somewhere earlier in the thread somebody posted charts of illegally immigration and border crossing per year. Essentially current rates are 1/2 of what the were at the beginning of the century. The 2009 recession really burst the demand for jobs in the US, that coupled with a growing middle class in Mexico (Mexico did relatively well in the great recession), better border enforcement, we actually seen the number of illegal immigrant in this country decrease since 2009. We actually have the opposite problem right now not enough immigration.
But fundamentally your analysis is flawed that poorly paid immigrants are drain on society because you are only looking at their wages and not the large benefits to society. As you say many of illegal immigrants are exploited by employers. Let’s take a look at both of our former employee, Intel. Intel isn’t known for exploiting its workers, starting pay at chip fabrication plant is about $25/hour and you only need a high school degree (although there is a ton of training required also). Still, the company has about 100K employee and make $10/billion or $100,000/employee. Meaning that in a socialist paradise Intel could raise the pay of their employees by $50/hour or $100K/year. Of course, the exploitation of employees at Intel is nothing compared to Apple which makes ~$400k/employee per year. There is another word for exploiting workers and it is called profit. Now there is a lots of spirited discussion about how really only the rich gain from profit, but even in case of a multinational like Intel it is clear that most of the benefits of the exploited workers accrue to America and Americans.
Or let’s take a clear case of exploitation, the big chicken farmer, forced teenagers from Central America to work on his chicken farms paid them below minimum wage. He charged them excessively for rent in shitholes and food. Yes, if they got sick he probably dropped them off at the local hospital and made society pay for them. Still, the asshole chicken farmer bought Cadallics, and pickup trucks from the local dealers, sponsored little league teams and spent money in the local community. He paid taxes on the profits (the IRS hounded him). Most importantly, the region benefited from inexpensive chicken. So even though the guy may have only paid $5/hour, the value of the kids labor was far more than that.
Finally, let’s take the case of something between the extreme of Apple/Intel employees “exploitation” and true exploitation. Right now from Florida to Washington, and PA to CA there are crop in the field, and fruits on the tree that aren’t going to picked this season. For a very simple reason, there isn’t labor to pick them. Farmers have raised starting wages to $20/hour, (and top pickers can make $30/hour) added medical benefits and even 401ks, and they can’t find workers to do the jobs. The handful of native-borns whites who apply typically don’t last a week at the job before quitting. It is not just that the job, is hard physically painful sweaty work, but you also have to be willing to follow the crops and move to a different state every few months. American’s have perfectly understandably decided they’d rather make $10/hour working in McDonald’s with AC than make twice that in the field and have to move constantly. The lack of labor is a huge cost to American farmers. (Although, thanks to Trump’s brilliant tariff policy there may not be much of a market for American agricultural products soon.)
Ideally, we’d have a sensible immigration policy with guest workers, merit based immigration, while still being mindful of the words on the statue of liberty. But in a time when there are way more jobs than people looking for jobs, and there are plenty of dirty jobs that only immigrants will do, it is really crazy to pretend the illegal immigration is a big problem. It is a monster lie by the racist wing of the Republican party.
