Ah, hold on a second. There are winners and losers to this. The consumer gets cheaper landscaping, cheaper vegetables, and can afford a better house because the labor to build it is cheaper. That translates to an increase in living standards for many.
How many consumer goods are people able to afford now because they are cheaply made in China? Compare to 50 years ago when they weren't?
As far as national living standards being dragged down by illegals, show me some hard data. After Luxumbourg, the US citizen makes the highest salary in the world. I don't feel that my living standards have decreased in the least because of all the illegals here.
Lest the emotional interpret this as advocating illegal immigration - I'M NOT.
It's a myth that the U.S. economy "needs" more poor immigrants. The illegal immigrants already here represent only about 4.9 percent of the labor force, the Pew Hispanic Center reports. In no major occupation are they a majority. They're 36 percent of insulation workers, 28 percent of drywall installers and 20 percent of cooks. They're drawn here by wage differences, not labor "shortages." Guest workers would mainly legalize today's vast inflows of illegal immigrants, with the same consequence: We'd be importing poverty. This isn't because these immigrants aren't hardworking; many are. Nor is it because they don't assimilate; many do. But they generally don't go home, assimilation is slow and the ranks of the poor are constantly replenished. Since 1980 the number of Hispanics with incomes below the government's poverty line (about $19,300 in 2004 for a family of four) has risen 162 percent. Over the same period, the number of non-Hispanic whites in poverty rose 3 percent and the number of blacks, 9.5 percent. What we have now -- and would with guest workers -- is a conscious policy of creating poverty in the United States while relieving it in Mexico. By and large, this is a bad bargain for the United States. It stresses local schools, hospitals and housing; it feeds social tensions (witness the Minutemen). To be sure, some Americans get cheap housecleaning or landscaping services. But if more mowed their own lawns or did their own laundry, it wouldn't be a tragedy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/21/AR2006032101146_pf.html
Data from one state. Californi http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/12/06/news/top_stories/19_56_5812_5_04.prt
Gee, I wasn't aware that house prices were dropping because illegals are pushing Americans out of the construction industry. Why, house prices in California must be going right through the floor !
It has been estimated that the average illegal costs the US about $55,000 per year.
What is cheap about that?