I find it interesting that no one, Republican or Democrat, really seems to understand what causes illegal immigration to begin with. It seems to me that if there were no one hiring these folks, there would be precious little reason for them to come.

I am a Libertarian, but one area where I strongly disagree is immigration. I do not support an open border/citizen of the world approach to immigration.

It is frequently said that immigrants take jobs Americans don't want. Well, there is some truth to this idea, but one must consider why this may be so. Whenever a country has a huge influx of largely unskilled immigrants, they will usually drive wages down in jobs that are already on the lower end of the wage scale. Often, illegals will work for even less than minimum wage. They effectively out compete the natives on price. While this makes Republicans salivate over the prospect of cheap labor, these low wages are what frequently drive these immigrants to seek the various forms of public assistance which our government provides. So, essentially, various businesses have been able to pass along the real labor cost onto the taxpayers.

If we want to stop illegal immigration, we need to prosecute the businesses hiring them. If wages in these industries which are particularly prone to using illegal labor go up to a level where Americans could actually afford to live on them, there will be less demand for public assistance and greater tax revenue.

There is no societal benefit to cheap labor.