Illegal Immigrants

In response to comments about illegal immigration.

• Illegals pay taxes. Sales taxes when they buy stuff, and indirect property taxes when they rent. Also gas taxes if they drive. These are the major sources of local revenue. At their income level, state and federal taxes wouldn't amount to much, but unless their employer keeps them off the books, that is being paid too. If the employer is pocketing all that tax money, I would think he's running a big risk of an audit from the IRS.

• Attempts to chase down employers just lead to explosions of identity theft. If the illegal presents a social security number and driver's license (both stolen, not fake), the employer can look them up in the system and say he's done all that's necessary. I think this is already happening. The government solution is a national identity database, to track the names and home addresses of every legal worker. It would have to have biometric information too, to keep from being stolen. Is this what you want?

• Saying "let the companies pay a decent wage and pass the cost along" implies, "let the middle class pay more for everything -- construction, yard work, meals out." As if the middle class were undertaxed. And as if raising the wages of unskilled workers would decrease the appeal of these jobs to illegals!

  And yes, many of these companies would go out of business. You don't really need to have your house cleaned every week, or have your lawn mowed as often, or build such a huge house or go out to eat at a place with waiters. This "screw the business" attitude seems to imply that customers will just pay and pay no matter how much something costs.

• It doesn't make any sense that employers of illegals are making some huge windfall. Once enough companies are doing that, they would compete away the profit margin, and the legals-only companies would go out of business. There are so many illegals in places like southern California, I'd be surprised if that hasn't happened already.

• Americans get a very expensive education at state expense (12 years at $9000 a year!) If they can't compete with semi-literate field workers from Mexico, they are doomed. Putting up walls and hoping the work doesn't leave the country is not a solution. For example, you could kick out all the illegal construction workers, and then see modular housing factories set up across the border, with a constant stream of prefab housing parts being shipped in and assembled on site. Or farther in the future, there are plans for robotic house construction. I can't find the link, but it's a moving scaffold thing that pours foundations and walls under computer control.

  In fact, go to Robotic Nation Blog for lots of interesting articles. The site author is a bit of a flake, but the links are still worth reading.

  The same kind of thing can happen with other service jobs. Work is more mobile than we realized, and there's always the threat of automation for the work that isn't. There are robots that will mow your lawn, you know!

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