[427TJ]

I've used this analogy here before but I think it clearly explains the problem of illegal labor:

Say you want a hole dug in your backyard for a new swimming pool. You call a local (American) building contractor. He arrives in his new $40,000 crew-cab pickup (yeah, it's got a Hemi) with $3,000 worth of chrome wheels and mud tires. The truck has a trailer hitch for towing his $30,000 bass fishing boat. He usually puts his four dirt bikes in the bed when he goes on vacation and tows the four ATVs on a trailer. If duck season opens when he's half-way through digging the hole for your pool he will leave the job and go duck hunting for a week. (There is a clause in the contract that you missed that says he shall be allowed to leave the job site for opening day of duck, deer, salmon, pheasant, etc., etc. season.) His fee for digging the pool is $3,000, not including a disposal fee for the mound of dirt.

Juan Martinez, an illegal alien from Mexico, will arrive in his 1975 Datsun short-bed pickup with his wife at his side and his four kids will be sitting in the bed. He brought six shovels, one for himself, one for Juanita, his wife, and four more for his children, ranging in age from 15 down to 6. They will all dig. His fee for digging your pool is $500 cash and they will not stop digging until the job is finished. You'll pay him cash, he will say "Gracias, muchas gracias!" and leave. If he hurts himself while digging, his family will double their efforts and finish the job--no OSHA claim to sweat over.

So who will you hire?

By the way, the American contractor will have hired Juan and his family to dig the hole and pocket $2,700 bucks. He will have paid Juan only $300 to do the job after threatening to report Juan to the INS.

Illegal labor is like crack cocaine. We know we shouldn't use it but it's JUST SO DAMN CHEAP!