> 2. Lowering wages. Restricted immigration actually lowers wages. Why? Because it allows employs to pay undocumented workers less. Poultry farms are an excellent example of this. They pay undocuemnted workers less. If they ever start making noise about wages or conditions, you clear them out by calling in an ICE raid, pay a nominal fine, rinse and repeat.
This only happens because there is no policing of companies exploiting undocumented workers. I've seen wages lowered time and time again in various industries due to the exploitation of undocumented workers. I've seen it in the restaurant industry, construction, trades, cleaning services, etc.
I wish I could find the articles that came out about this at the time- but the bakery was reported by employees, mainly black employees that were losing their jobs to the illegals and experiencing pay cuts. The company complains about losing 21 million- bc they had to start paying fair wages to get actual citizens to work. I understand your sentiment- that if there is no pay gap between undocumented workers and citizens- then the wages should go up- but in reality- you just doubled the labor pool, so wages will not go up. I also agree- we should be blaming the capital owners for this- but my opinion is that capital owners write the laws and that's why enforcement on undocumented labor is non-existent.
This only happens because there is no policing of companies exploiting undocumented workers. I've seen wages lowered time and time again in various industries due to the exploitation of undocumented workers. I've seen it in the restaurant industry, construction, trades, cleaning services, etc.
https://chicago.eater.com/2017/11/29/16716666/mcdonalds-bake...
I wish I could find the articles that came out about this at the time- but the bakery was reported by employees, mainly black employees that were losing their jobs to the illegals and experiencing pay cuts. The company complains about losing 21 million- bc they had to start paying fair wages to get actual citizens to work. I understand your sentiment- that if there is no pay gap between undocumented workers and citizens- then the wages should go up- but in reality- you just doubled the labor pool, so wages will not go up. I also agree- we should be blaming the capital owners for this- but my opinion is that capital owners write the laws and that's why enforcement on undocumented labor is non-existent.