I'm not so sure I buy into the "cheap labor" excuse for illegals any more. At least around here (primarily grain crops - rice, soybeans, wheat), farmers are hiring "hispanic" workers because they are more reliable than American workers. These hispanics are getting paid the same as Americans in the same job, and in many cases more because of reliability.
If this is true, that pay is no longer a reason for hiring the hispanics (using that term because they are a combination from Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras), then it says something pretty ugly about American workers. And I do realize that the average pay for a farm worker/hand around here is pretty poor - but where would money for higher pay come from? Grain farmers really have no control over their crop prices.
The positive - as far as I can tell, the vast majority of immigrant workers around here are legal (or at least have very realistic papers). That's a lot more than I can say for the majority of Tyson chicken plants - but even there, the illegals are paid the same as the American workers - and Tyson workers actually make fair money. Not enough to get rich, but it's better than farm labor.
I met a great Minuteman Project volunteer names Ruben from Los Angeles. He is hispanic. He said that something that really struck him since coming to Cochise County was that the fast food employees, cleaning people at the hotels, Wal-mart employees, busboys, etc. that he's seen do not appear to be illegals despite all of the illegals that pour through Cochise County every day. Aside from the obvious that our employers are obeying the law, his point was this. In Los Angeles all of those same positions are held by illegals, but not here. It shows that these are jobs that Americans WILL work - they're doing it in Cochise County because employers are obeying the law and keeping those jobs available for U.S. citizens. In L.A., the situation is reversed. The employers don't care and are more than willing to hire illegals - therefore the illegals are being hired at the exclusion of U.S. citizens. If anyone wonders why Arizona is seeing a massive influx of refugees from California, this is a significant cause.
Most grain farmers are heavily subsidized by the US Taxpayer to the tune of about $20 billion per year. I expect the farmers could use a little bit of THAT money to pay a decent wage.
But instead the farmers are hiring illegals and that amounts to a second massive subsidy by taxpayers. We get stuck with paying for the health care, education, prisons and social services for all that cheap farm labor.