[consteval]

I don't follow this. I would imagine an influx of extremely cheap labor would raise everyone else's living standards, not lower them. Because everything is cheaper to produce. That's why Dubai has extremely extravagant places put right next to pseudo-slave's shanties.

[drivebyhooting]

Everyone? You can’t imagine a situation where the surplus from the cheap labor is captured by a few capitalists while the rest suffer?

I’m not saying that is happening but it doesn’t take much imagination to see it could happen.

Also if you actually have to interface with clearly illegal cheap labor (landscaping, construction, low quality catering) you’ll see the pattern: a kingpin immigrant who only hires other immigrants with little to no English and a preference for being paid in cash.

[consteval]

The "few capitalists" in this scenario is the domestic people.

[drivebyhooting]

Definitely not all of them.

And you haven’t addressed the elephant in the room. Practically all the “low skill” manual labor is done by poorly integrated, cash-only immigrants. Is this acceptable?

[consteval]

Of course it's not acceptable, but it's advantageous to us. That's why the republicans and democrats will never do away with it.

You're getting labor for a cost well under minimum wage. It's a sweet deal if you ignore humanitarian concerns, which our politicians do. The right doesn't actually want to end immigration, they just want to put in minimal effort to virtue signal to their voter base.

There are extremely simple and effective ways to end immigration. You will find exactly 0 republicans who advocate any of them. It's all talk on a stage to appeal to latent American racism.

[drivebyhooting]

I didn’t mention political parties.

It may be advantageous to me for landscaping, but on the whole I am not sure. It certainly didn’t advantage any low skill American.

[consteval]

> It certainly didn’t advantage any low skill American

I mean, I guess this might be true but then again "low skill" Americans don't matter from a political perspective because they barely pay taxes. Again, politicians may appeal to them but in actuality they don't care about them.

And, I'm really doubting that being a white, native English-speaking American puts you at a disadvantage even for physical labor.