Froma Harrop / Syndicated columnist


There's a popular game in America that goes, I'll cut your wages, but you don't cut mine. And the outsourcing of your factory job to China is a good thing, because it makes my paycheck go further at Wal-Mart. We hear this theme a lot in the debate over illegal immigration.

Consider the recent raids on Swift meat-processing plants. Federal agents arrested 1,187 illegal immigrants at facilities in six states. Mere hours later, economists warned that depriving the industry of illegal labor could raise hamburger prices.

Illegal immigration is usually presented as a win-win situation: Undocumented foreigners earn far more than they could back home. Consumers get a bargain.

Nowhere to be seen are America's working poor who get stomped on 13 different ways. They have to compete with illegal immigrants for jobs and housing. Low-skilled natives and legal immigrants also end up subsidizing the undocumented because they tend to live in the same communities, which must provide hospitals, police, schools and garbage pickup.

Read the rest.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/o ... cation=rss