The WSJ Shows Its Colors--Again

Not that there was ever a doubt...

In this opinion piece, the "no borders" (that's cheap-labor) crowd reveals its fear:

The new no-match program may not catch everybody, but it has the potential to impact the employment of three to four million undocumented workers. With such workers concentrated in just a few big states -- California, Texas, Florida, New York, Arizona and Illinois -- the regional impact of the program could be substantial.

Border enforcement keeps some immigrants out, but since it does nothing to remove the jobs magnet pulling workers here, it actually raises the rewards for those who make it in, encouraging more illegal immigration. Fears of no-match letters reflect a simple reality -- this could work. --Federal Reserve economist Pia Orennius

After all, the price of lettuce will have a substantial debilitating effect on COLA, right?

The justification for the WSJ's horror?

The main effects will be to drive undocumented workers underground where they will work off the books for lower wages, under worse conditions and subject to more abuses.

Yup. Of course, such arrangements are ALSO illegal. And the 'employers' who use such practices vaguely resemble the Cotton Kings. But that's not very polite, is it?

JunkYardBlog observes:

Illegals are already nearly in indentured servitude, subject to extortion by the threat of informing La Migra about them. But this unsavory status quo doesn't seem to be a big concern to the amnesty advocates. Given that, they need to explain why these lower wages (which would increase overall efficiency, fight inflation, and lower the price of those all-important heads of lettuce we keep hearing about) would be such a bad thing. If cheap labor is OK, why isn't even cheaper labor better?

In other words, if going "off-books" is cheaper, then what's the WSJ's complaint?

She's also concerned that as they get fired, illegals will default on their mortgages. I can only conclude that any bank that lends money to an illegal alien to buy a house was either abysmally incompetent in its due diligence background check, or just plain knew it was loaning money to an illegal. And I say, that sucks to be that bank.

And you thought that the Sub-Prime problem was a big deal?