> A lot of "illegal immigrants" are an absolutely essential part of the economy, performing jobs like picking oranges in the Florida heat/humidity, doing roofing work, washing dishes, etc

This is what kind of gets me though. Supporting illegal immigration is supporting indentured servitude. I've especially noticed it in NYC, it boils down to "I'll support your right to stay here as long as I can still find a $6 burrito and a cheap nanny".

That's not entirely fair. If the immigrant feels that they have a better life as a low-wage worker in the US (keep in mind many are escaping violent or oppressive surroundings) then I won't be the judge of that by imposing artificial limits on livelihood. We can at least acknowledge that we are improving the lives of those immigrants for whom this is the case.

Can we? There doesn't appear to be a limiting principle in your argument.

This is already happening: California Farmers Backed Trump, but Now Fear Losing Field Workers

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/09/us/california-farmers-bac...

I don't know why its so uncomfortable for conservatives to admit that illegals play a role in our economy[1]. If they didn't they wouldn't be here as the market would choose against them. This is why Democrats have been fighting for amnesty programs for long time illegals, to keep this labor and the work it does here. Native borns aren't fighting to pick oranges for 12 hours a day at minimum wage, but these guys will and do.

On top of the moral argument that these people have kids here and are rooted in our culture and schools and dragging their parents off to Mexico and breaking up families is just inhumane.

Thus far Trump has not addressed any of this. He has a "jail and deport 'em at high noon" attitude that does no one any good. Disregarding the labor they do is foolish just as Trump supporting California farmers are starting to learn.

[1] The only people I know who are definitely employing illegals are a white wealthy couple with an illegal Mexican nanny. Funny how that works.

>I don't know why its so uncomfortable for conservatives to admit that illegals play a role in our economy[1].

I guess I'd call myself a conservative (I think) and I don't get uncomfortable at all admitting that, but that doesn't mean that the fact they do "play a role" is right or correct. You're implying something that I think is quite dangerous: that the US economy can't function unless we allow people to break our laws to be here. That sounds like a caste system by another name. I genuinely don't understand arguments from the left that attempt to minimize the importance of State Sovereignty in the context of these debates. "Native borns" used to be able to find that work...until we started importing illegal immigrants willing to work for fractions of the cost.

> Native borns aren't fighting to pick oranges for 12 hours a day at minimum wage, but these guys will and do.

An economist would say it's because the wage being offered is too low. Businesses don't get to have access to unlimited labour at whatever wage they choose in a market economy.

Yet they're not all illegals. Natives of Mexican heritage and others of the poorest class perform this work at this wage.

Regardless, why aren't we jailing those who hire these people and cause these problems then? Oh right, they're Trump loyalists, political donors, and white.

Prices are set on the margins. Any illegals in the system will drive wages down.

My grandfather owned many apple orchards, and he said without migrant labor, he would have had to go out of business years ago. He could not hire US citizens as workers because nobody that is born here wants to climb trees all day picking fruit for minimum wage. This was back in the 80s. He also had very good things to say about how hard-working and dedicated the migrant workers were.

Now, you might argue that without migrant labor, he should just pay a decent wage, but what is a decent wage for hard manual labor? Would you be ok with paying $10 an apple at the grocery store because someone was paid $30-40 an hour to pick them?

The narrative that illegal immigrants are all criminals is deeply flawed and inaccurate.

> He could not hire US citizens as workers because nobody that is born here wants to climb trees all day picking fruit for minimum wage.

Then he may have to pay over minimum wage!

Then he would have to charge 10$/apple at the store, his follow-up point.

No. The numbers don't work. A typical apple picker (the most labor intense/apple part of the work) can do 1000 lb/hour [1]

So even if you had to pay domestic workers $30/hour, and you could pay migrants nothing, that still only comes to charging 3 cents a pound more. Not $8.

[1] Just an example, but others say the same: https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/jobs-making-money/side-gigs/...

It makes me wonder to what extent migrant labor features in the other parts of that apple's value chain, though.

Much of the price of that apple comes from the farmhands who loaded the truck, the truckdriver who drove it, the gas that the truck burned, the warehouse that stored it, the shopkeeper that stocked it, and the cashier that sold it. I don't know the prevalence of migrant workers in each of those industries - but looking around, I'd guess that lots of cashiers, lots of farmhands, and maybe a few truckdrivers and gas station attendants are also immigrants. If you had to pay them $30-40/hour, would the apple still cost a dollar?

Only a few of those are labor cost issues, and most of those are not typically migrant labor (truck drivers and grocery employees). That leaves the truck loaders, which is much less work per apple than picking.

Point being, this "$10/lb" is extreme exaggeration.

Now, it's probably true that orchard owners would love the free 3 cents a pound (or 2, or 1). And they're not going to leave money on the table when others can get away with hiring cheaper illegal labor. But the idea that apples have to be that much more expensive is pushing it.

And, I'm not saying this is wrong, but it appears to me that most people living here have voted with their wallet.

If you compare food prices in nordic countries where labor is more fairly priced, you'll see how dramatically more expensive everything is.

I'd love to see a formal study on how often Americans "go out" for food rather than buy from a grocery and cook it themselves. In Scandinavia, the cost difference between eating-in and going-out is much, much larger than here in the USA.

how many apples per hour does a worker pick? If you paid a worker an extra $20/hour you don't get $10/apple at the store unless the worker only picks two apples an hour, now, does it?

Not paying farm workers acceptable salaries otherwise things at the grocery store will cost 5x don't seem to pass the math smell test...

It's only a problem if his competitors aren't.

> The narrative that illegal immigrants are all criminals is deeply flawed and inaccurate.

Illegal immigrants are, by definition, all criminals.

No need to be pedantic; the narrative that they are all gang members, rapists, hard, violent criminals is deeply flawed and inaccurate.

It's not a criminal offense. Not everything that is unlawful is criminal.

> And a system that can be "sucked dry" has a design flaw which should be rectified anyway.

This is politics not engineering. Flaws are part of the design. Every flaw is designed to appease one group or another. Restricting access on any arbitrary basis would lead to calls of racism, xenophobia, class warfare, etc.

> Interview farmers in the south and ask them how many American born workers are willing to even take many farm jobs.

Working hard is not the issue. Working in the heat is not the issue. Plenty of American citizens do that. The issue is of pay. Southern farmers can not afford to pay above minimum wage which is why they sometimes resort to hiring illegal immigrants or prisoners.

Why can't they pay more than minimum? Because they're competing against border states, like California, who have: illegal immigrants working below minimum wage, large economies with well developed public infrastructure, and the greater take of federal and state subsidies.

They are also competing with other countries that might be better equipped to produce those goods (e.g. Chile might have cheaper labor, and better water/soil/climate) for some types of fruits.

Without subsidies or this cheap labor, a lot of agr. would cease to be profitable.

It's funny how the left is all about living wages except when illegal aliens are involved. Evidently, near-slavery is acceptable for these people. If we didn't have them, wages would rise, and Americans would in fact perform these jobs.

It's notable also that some of the worst-affected Americans happen to be black, and that wealthy liberals aren't hiring black housekeepers. It's as if there might be some fear of certain Americans, so we find foreigners to hire instead.