[zaptheimpaler]

Its not the immigrants you should be mad at, its the corporate interests. Like this article shows, the immigrants have an advantage over citizens precisely because companies get away with paying them less.

The US government has been bought & sold to the highest bidder for a long time now, in many, many areas - repealing net neutrality, healthcare no one can afford, skyrocketing CEO salaries while companies claim raising minimum-wage would bankrupt them, the list just goes on and on. Pharmaceutical companies hide results/push bad drugs and get a slap on the wrist. Google/Apple/Facebook got caught colluding in wage-fixing to keep salaries low and got a slap on the wrist.

Prisons are run for-profit and the few companies that control how prisoners send messages/make calls to the outside charge rates like $20 for a 20-minute call. A money order to send money outside costs $11.95. The prison facilities sometimes share in the revenue made by these companies, which gives them further incentive to gouge prisoners. No doubt the prisons kickback some money to police officers who get them more arrests too.

Like at what point is the government going to fucking step in and protect the people over the companies?

As long as that keeps happening the middle-class will continue to get f*ed. But immigrants are just a convenient scapegoat to blame, and screwing them will not really solve the problem. When you sell crucial nation-level functions to companies, set up a stock market that incentivizes revenue above all else, and the government is asleep at the wheel to correct the worst tendencies of revenue-maximizing, this is what happens.