Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 03/28/06 6:23 pm:
you ever consider increasing the numbers of LEGAL immigrants instead of an open border where you have no control of who comes in to solve this alleged labor shortage ? Think maybe if we had better border control we could've kept out some of the 10,000 + Mara Salvatrucha 13 gang members off our streets ?

Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 03/28/06 7:09 pm:
Enjoy bringing in the harvest, Tomas!

Been there (Kansas) ;also worked road construction ;labored in an injection molding plant ;was a short order cook and an industrial cook (and did the dishes ;pots and pans etc.) , mowed lawns ;shoveled driveways ;delivered papers ;was a camp councellor ,and .....my favorite .... ushered in a theater . There was no job I was unwilling to do in my youth.

You make it sound like there are 11 million illegals here picking produce . Absurd . It affects all blue collar jobs .

If you look around the world at the countries with the worst living standards, their problem is not a lack of cheap labor. Their problem is they have too much cheap labor . How does bringing cheap labor into the country benefit it ?

The reason the old South was a stagnant economy was that they had slaves to do the work so there was no need to invest in modernization . They did not stand a chance against the North's industry and the Midwest's agriculture .Trust me ;if there was no illegal to pick the lettuce then some later day Elli Whitney would invent a machine to do it .Just like you can harvest more acres of wheat with a combine ;so too will innovation make harvesting of any product more efficient . But when labor is abundant and cheap there is no incentive for the owner to make that capital investment .

Maximizing output per worker, rather than the number of workers; and building up the skills and incomes of workers, not undermining them with the poor and the uneducated, is the right way to advance .