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"..As long as there are people willing to hire them, they will keep coming. Like drugs, it's the demand that sustains the market.."

That may be the simplified version, yet it goes much deeper than that. I don't think home owners or business owners actively search for illegals to do their work for cheaper wages.

A labor need exists, and affordable help is hard to find. When I was a kid, I was lucky to get $5 for cutting a yard. Today, the kids in my neighborhood want $25 to cut the same size yard. You do math, if an illegal came to your house and offered to cut it for $10, would you refuse?

It's even more prevalent in my line of work. I work within the construction industry, and have worked on projects primarily located throughout the Southwest. Many of the workers are Mexican nationals. In the construction industry as a whole, most of them come here for the work, NOT the government handouts.

Most of these guys are more than happy to work at a wage lower than most American workers would accept (which is usually too high to begin with). I don't think this particular group is here to bleed us dry. They risk a lot in travelling to this country looking for work.

And no....I'm not a feel good lefty, I just happen to see a problem that we are continually faced with....and the nationals are a convient (and reliable)answer. It doesn't make it right, but it's not going away either.

I am a small business owner. The people I am getting ready to hire for my studio will be paid $15.00 an hour. It's skilled labor, and I need the help. If they are able bodied, intelligent enough, and Either Legal Aliens, or Citizens, I'll hire anyone. However what I will not do, is pay someone a pittance, just because it's cheaper. That does nothing but keep people, like Mexicans subservient. If Mexcans want to come here, Fine, Do it legally. If you want to hire illegal aliens, that's everyone else's business. However when your business is raided by INS, don't cry about it. Pay the fines and hire LEGAL immigrants, or citizens for your workplace.

There are two things we can do to stop illegal immigration. One is to stop hiring Illegal Mexican Immigrants for menial jobs, the other is to close our borders to Mexico to illegal immigration.

Most of these guys are more than happy to work at a wage lower than most American workers would accept (which is usually too high to begin with).

The Mexicans accept this lower wage because they can live on it - at 15 to an apartment or something like that. Americans won't work for a salary that forces them to live in such dismal conditions.

If the employers who hire these muchachos are paying them at least minimum wage, then the problem is, indeed, a labor shortage. If they are paying them less, then it isn't a labor shortage, but a desire for cheap labor. In that case there will always be a market for illegals.