Wages of Illegals

Interesting post at Bernoulli Effect that looks at just how much those so-called "indispensible" low-wage illegal workers are to the farming economy:

Defenders of archaic work methods are just defending their comfortable niche; they never look at the big picture. Would produce cost more if there were no illegals to harvest it? Maybe or maybe not--newer, more efficient methods of getting the crop in might well be used; and think of the offsetting savings to be gained by eliminating the drain on our public school and public health systems.
...
So as Mark points out, raising the wages of the harvesters by 40 percent would result in only an eight dollar a year increase in the grocery bill of an average family. And it could quite possibly be less than that if productivity improvements are made.

It always amazed me how the left would essentially support exploitation of the workers at sub-par wages. Artificially low wages are not cost-free, and, as the above apparently demonstrates, not all that advantageous even in the short run.

We need a fence!