Before I ask my question, please understand that I am trying to ask an honest question, not disguise a statement/argument as a question. With that said, if illegal immigrants were to suddenly vanish from the U.S., how much of an impact would that have on our way of life? I understand that groceries would probably be more expensive without illegal immigrants working at farms for pennies on the dollar, and that the price of a lot of goods would go up without illegal immigrants cleaning offices, stores, etc... um... dirt cheap, but how much of an impact would we feel? Also, what else would happen besides prices going up?

[Edited on June 12, 2007 at 11:38 AM. Reason : .]

6/12/2007 11:37:32 AM

it would affect plenty of those things



and lazy ass people that were born here would have to do some manual labor because there would be a need for unskilled labor in the market

6/12/2007 11:47:58 AM

Most of the reason illegal immigrants come here is to earn a decent wage doing jobs that most people here wouldn't care to do. Clearly if they all disappeared, it would be very hard to fill in what they are willing to perform. A lot of them came here in order to get a decent job to provide for their family and not cause trouble for people already here.

6/12/2007 12:14:07 PM

Americans would be less obese because they would mow their own lawns.
Anheusier Busch stock would drop.
Nike would stop manufacturing the Cortez.

6/12/2007 12:17:10 PM

And more HS students would be doing the work currently done by illegals.

6/12/2007 1:17:11 PM

Quote :

"doing jobs that most people here wouldn't care to do. Clearly if they all disappeared, it would be very hard to fill in what they are willing to perform"

So before the early 90's when the massive immigrant wave started to spread out from the border states, who did these jobs? People are willing to perform these jobs, just not at illegal wages. Illegals shift the balance of power to employers rather than the labor pool. Less illegals = more competition over labor.

6/12/2007 1:22:23 PM

6/12/2007 1:45:27 PM

The effects would be marginal. The standard of living of some would fall slightly, others would increase slightly. All in all, the negatives would swamp the positives, reducing America's overall standard of living something like 10%. But most of this would be due to population loss; if instead of vanishing the illegals, they were replaced with appropriately educated english speakers, then some Americans would prosper, others would suffer, but overall standard of living would be close to 10% higher.

In either scenario, such manual labor jobs would vanish, replaced with mechanized techniques for performing the same tasks. Some fruits and vegetables do not lend themselves to mechanized harvesting, but the higher losses from harvesting will be compensated by planting more.

As such, prices will increase for such goods, but not as much as you might think; then cumulative effect on strawberries, for example, would be less than a 50% price increase.

That said, I doubt strawberry prices would increase much at all, as more consumption shifted to imports from South America where labor is still cheap.

6/12/2007 1:51:16 PM

I believe if that happened then the free market economy would work itself out.

When it comes to consumer goods, we know they work to produce those goods (items consumed by the whole population: food, clothing, roads, etc...), but take into consideration that they consume the very same items as well. So if you look at the market as a whole, it evens out.

You can apply the same theory to services. Services provided for lower wages would be replaced by higher wages for the same service. But, take into consideration that these lower wage employees require services themselves (i.e., law enforcement, social services, health care, and the like). So, the market as a whole evens itself out.

[Edited on June 12, 2007 at 2:13 PM. Reason : ... in theory]

6/12/2007 2:09:09 PM

i do not have a problem with illegal mexicans as long as they are out working. when they start causing problems like criminal behaviors or draining off the system then there asses needed to be throw back across the border.

They would not be coming over here and companies not hire them if there was not a demand for cheap labor doing menial work that native americans wanted to do

[Edited on June 12, 2007 at 2:38 PM. Reason : l]

6/12/2007 2:37:23 PM

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1625191,00.html

Good article on the Guest Worker program and the impact on NC's economy.

Quote :

"Should They Stay Or Should They Go? "The system is collapsing from within," is how Stan Eury, director of the North Carolina Growers Association, puts it. He had 10,000 workers in 2000 but only 6,400 this year. Employers complain about the spiraling costs of wages, transportation, government fees and housing. Activists worry about exploitation. Economists say guest-worker programs may look like a flexible solution to the nation's seasonal agricultural needs, but they inevitably grow rigid under a tangle of red tape. "

6/12/2007 2:38:31 PM