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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don’t agree with the way MAGAs are approaching this as hunting down immigrants for sport, but there needs to be humane immigration reform. Plenty of people all over the world are in bad situations and would love to live in the US. Laws need to be respected. [/quote]

Drop me a lime with those laws or changed so that people like our guy have a realistic chance of legal immigration. Until then I’m hiding him.[/quote]

That’s the crux:  he’ll never have a realistic chance at legal immigration because his economic value and utility is *derived* from his undocumented status.

Your worker is a good person and you are well intentioned. Nonetheless, if your worker had legal status his costs of operating his business would go up. As it is, he is paid cash under the table, he accepts more risk than a worker with legal status would (risks that would more properly be allocated to you the homeowner), and he very likely does not report his income to the IRS.  This all means he is cheaper than properly authorized labor. A cost savings that *you* are the true beneficiary of.   The net effect is that you get cheaper cost services and domestic workers with legal status are priced out of the market.

I’m sure you think that using and harboring cheap labor is noble. But the reality is that no matter how good your intentions are and how decent a person your landscaper is, you are intentionally engaging in economic activity that benefits you materially, helps the undocumented laborer but undercuts the domestic workforce.   You are selling out the American labor force so that you can have extra dollars.  In doing so, you are perpetuating inequality and creating a permanent economic underclass.

If your laborer ever actually had legal status, he would find himself price undercut by undocumented labor.   If you were using above board labor, your prices would go up. [/quote]

Long term labor shortages do not happen naturally in market economies. That is not to say that they don't exist. They are created when employers or government agencies tamper with the natural functioning of the wage mechanism.

[b]"[To attract] workers, the employer may have to increase his wage offer. ... So when you hear an employer saying he needs immigrants to fill a "labor shortage'', remember what you are hearing: a cry for a labor subsidy to allow the employer to avoid the normal functioning of the labor market."
-1990 Congressional Testimony of Dr. Michael S. Teitelbaum[/b]

http://users.nber.org/~sewp/references/archive/weinsteinhowandwhygovernment.pdf
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