Just Another Job?

This article nicely summarizes some of my primary reasons for being against illegal immigration. Effectively these people are modern day slaves, subjected to all sorts of abuses by the client/host relationship they are stuck in because they have no documentation and little to no recourse with the authorities when they are here illegally and there are abuses against them. I have personally seen this in the construction field, illegal undocumented workers are treated extremely poorly by the companies which they work for, low pay, no benefits, hazardous working conditions and the ever present fear of deportation. I was working on a medium-rise mixed use building one day inspecting rebar and some concrete, all of the ironworkers that were placing the rebar were illegal undocumented workers from Guatemala and Mexico. They were all great guys and as I was the only inspector that could communicate directly with them I always worked with them. The highest paid worker on the job was getting paid $12/hour with no overtime, 20 minutes for lunch, and no breaks. In contrast, a union ironworker at the journeyman level is paid $32/hour with excellent benefits, mandatory breaks, retirement and a union system to prevent hazardous and unsafe working conditions. The illegal workers that I worked with were all deported one day at the job site towards the end of construction and union labor was brought in to finish the job. There was a lot of speculation in the industry as to whom had reported to illegal workers, but I heard from a reliable source that the owner of the building owed the illegal workers company a lot of money in back wages and reported them himself to avoid having to pay them and also to be able to say that his building was union built.