What does it matter if employers hire illegal immigrants and pay them less than the minimum wage? Illegals can be intimidated into working for free.

In fact, the best way to increase pay on the low end, is to reduce the workforce. The flood of illegal immigrants represents a glut of low cost labor: take that away, and employers will have to pay more in order to persuade Americans from abandoning what they get through disability fraud, and get back into the workforce instead.

A friend (Democrat) who works in the food industry tells me that nearly everyone she works with is here illegally — spanning more than five jobs over the last few years. Hmmm

Jobs that used to go to Americans: painter, floor layer, construction worker, busboy, server in McDonalds, landscaper — these were jobs that Americans used to have. When I was in college, I took jobs like these during summer months. My step son recently tried to get a job and could not — he had to go back to Starbucks. No other place would hire him: why should they when they can get cheap immigrant labor?

Limit the supply of illegal immigrants, and pay will naturally rise, and then we won’t even need an increase in the minimum wage. It wouldn’t happen overnight: it takes time for an economy to adjust, but it would happen.