The idea that Americans don't want/are too lazy to do hard jobs is a myth. Americans are more than happy to work hard if the pay and benefits are reasonable. It is correct, though, that Americans are mostly unwilling to work for Tegucigalpa wages.
My cousin put himself through college and grad school by working hard gutting fish at a cannery in Seward, Alaska, during all 4 months of his summer "vacations." The current hourly pay rate for working in an AK cannery is only $10.19/hr., which is AK's minimum wage. My cousin explained to me, though, that the reason he was able to save so much money working at a cannery job was through LOTS of overtime, paid at time and a half, and because of the fact that he had very low living expenses, since he camped out in his tent all summer in a free spot near his workplace.
If employers did not have access to a big pool of workers who were not legally entitled to work in our country, and therefore willing to accept below market wages and no benefits, they would have to increase wages and benefits until they were enough to entice American workers to do the work that needs to be done on farms, in slaughter houses, on construction sites, etc. This would mean that food and other items and services in the US would become more expensive and/or that the companies engaged in these businesses would make less profits. It would also be more ethical, imho, than continuing to allow tens of millions of undocumented workers to be exploited for our benefit.
There is a big problem with having a set of indentured workers (illegal immigration does that). As far as I understand, it is the indentured aspect of the illegal workers, and that alone, that really harm American workers (by depressing and skewing the labor market) and benefits the capital owners. If you can abuse 50% of your workers because they are illegal, then that sets the tone and the entire labor market loses negotiating power against the capital owners.
However, having a large enough pool of legalized low-skilled immigration that meets the economic demands doesn't tend to be as economically harmful. If there was a properly functioning labor market (with nobody beholden to their employers like the illegal immigrants are), there may be localized disruptions, but the entire labor market would not be as distorted that workers get no part of the expansion of the economic pie.
Having zero immigrants and thereby driving the cost up is likely worse than both of these. At a certain point of labor cost, the entire economic activity will be not-feasible, which means the entire business shuts down. Will an Alaska Fish farm find enough American workers before that point? I don't have economic research to point to - but my gut feel says, no!! The path from current economic reality to where a head of lettuce costs $10 runs through a lot of economic misery.
Definitely don't think having "zero immigrants" would be desirable for the US. A strong, steady flow of immigrants is what has and will continue to make America great. I think we should switch to a completely merit based immigration system, similar to what New Zealand does. Immigration should be approached in a business-like way, with the goal of maximizing benefits to existing US citizens. Refugees are a completely unrelated issue. Of course, we should help desperate people fleeing wars, famine, etc. Those types of cases are a small fraction, though, of the immigrants who enter our country, each year. The vast majority of immigrants are economic migrants, people seeking more $/hr in exchange for their labor and a better quality of life. Our government should, on our behalf, be seeking out the brightest and best immigrants from all over the world, with skills that American employers need and cannot find locally.
Like New Zealand, the US should have a website on which it clearly lays out a pathway prospective immigrants who possess needed skills can follow to apply for work visas.
(NZ immigration website)
Skilled Migrant Category Resident Visa
We invite people who have the skills to contribute to New Zealand’s economic growth to apply for this visa. Before we can invite you to apply, we’ll first need you to send us an Expression of Interest (EOI) telling us about your employment in New Zealand, work experience, and qualifications. If your Expression of Interest is successful we’ll offer you the opportunity to apply to live and work in New Zealand indefinitely.
The only reason that Congress has not enacted significant immigration legislation since the 1980s is because all the people who benefit from the status quo are rich and all the people who are harmed by it are poor. If things were the other way around and poor people were benefiting and rich people were being hurt by allowing 12MM+ undocumented workers to continue to illegally reside and work in our country, Congress would've put a stop to it decades ago.
This I agree with.
Just doing a stronger form of E-Verify would do this (you can create your own account to make sure you info is correct, it works great for I and DW). Putting a few CEO's to jail for hiring illegal workers (while handing the concerned workers green-cards as whistle-blowers) will likely do it faster!!
If there were a will to do so, the US government could put an end to illegal immigration pretty quickly. All we'd need to do would be to contract with one of the big tech firms, say Google, and get them to build us a system that all employers could use to quickly and easily identify workers who are legally entitled to work in the US and to weed out those who are not allowed to work. Then, employers would no longer have plausible deniability. If the government caught companies exploiting their workers by hiring people who weren't legally allowed to work in the US, we could throw the book at the CEO and other executives, as you've suggested, ctuser1.
My brother lives in Norway. Several times, he's described to me differences between the way the government and media portray illegal immigration in the US and Norway. In the US, we act like the bad guys are the poor immigrants who come to our country seeking a better life. "They're stealing our jobs!" When ICE sweeps into a meat-packing plant or construction site to do a raid, the people who get hauled off in handcuffs are the poor migrants, people who are working their asses of to make our country a better place. When what
should happen, instead, is the managers, executives, CEO, and owners of the company should be the ones getting slammed up against a wall, searched, handcuffed, arrested and taken to jail. My brother says that in contrast to the US, in Norway, whenever he sees a story about illegal immigration, they're always talking about the unscrupulous employers who illegally hire workers in Norway, usually for the purpose of paying them less, and/or avoiding taxes by paying their workers under the table. He says, in Norway, it's always the employers who are portrayed as the bad guys, never the poor migrant workers. The workers are, rightfully, portrayed in the media as victims.
Maybe we could try that in the US, as well. If Americans convicted of knowingly employing illegal immigrant workers were thrown in jail and slapped with tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, they and others might think twice about doing it again. When it became impossible for people illegally in the country to find paying work, they would self deport back to their countries of origin, from where they should be allowed to apply for a work visa, so that they can legally re-enter the US.