[Animats]

too many people like cheap labor

Yes. If we really wanted to keep illegal immigrants from taking jobs from Americans, the US government could require a higher minimum wage for companies that don't use E-Verify. Then it would be cheaper to hire American.

[tptacek]

None of this is simple. If we coerce wages upwards for the jobs undocumented immigrants do, things will become more expensive; in fact, it's likely that low-income people will bear most of the brunt, because they have the least amount of flexibility in terms of where they purchase and how they finance their purchases. There's also the obvious fact that a dollar is marginally more valuable to a low-earner than to a high-earner.

People forget that there are two sides of the labor/wage coin; there's how much you make, and there's how much things cost. What we want at the end of the day is maximal purchasing power, not maximal nominal wages!

That's before we start talking about trade and the extent to which undocumented labor enables tens of billions of dollars of exports.

All I'm saying is: it's not simple. The deeper you dig into it, the sillier the wall is. But that's the point: nobody in power wants to end undocumented immigration; rather, they want to placate the people who are upset by it.