Mass Immigration Is a Wage Cut Dressed Up as Compassion

The Numbers Do Not Lie About the Border

For more than three years, the southern border was effectively open, the consequences spilled into every American community, and the federal government responded with speeches instead of enforcement. Customs and Border Protection recorded roughly 8.5 million encounters between ports of entry from fiscal 2021 through fiscal 2024, a total larger than the population of Arizona. Another 2 million people evaded capture, according to CBP estimates. Add them together and you have a city the size of Chicago walking into the country unvetted.

The flow did not stop at Texas. The Tucson sector in Arizona and the San Diego sector in California both saw record apprehensions in fiscal 2024. Border Patrol agents were pulled off the line to process paperwork. Fentanyl seizures topped 27,000 pounds in fiscal 2023. The cartels made money on both the people and the poison.

And the arrivals came from everywhere. CBP encountered nationals from more than 150 countries in fiscal 2023. That is not a regional refugee crisis. That is a global pipeline funneling into American communities, managed by criminal organizations that control the routes and set the prices.

And Washington pretended the system was working. It was not.

Who Really Pays for Open Borders

The heaviest price of unchecked immigration falls on low-wage American workers, local taxpayers, and the communities forced to absorb costs their budgets were never designed to carry. When millions of people enter outside the legal system, wages stagnate in construction and hospitality, classrooms swell, emergency rooms fill, and billions in earnings leave the country as remittances.

The first cost hits the working class. When labor supply surges faster than demand, wages flatten. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that real average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory workers grew just 0.4 percent annually between 2021 and 2024 after inflation. Construction, hospitality, and meatpacking saw the weakest gains. Those are industries where undocumented labor concentrates.

Immigrants are not villains. Many are decent people fleeing bad places. But policy is not a feelings contest. It is a math problem. Every worker who enters outside the legal system competes with citizens and legal immigrants who played by the rules. And the competition is not fair, because illegal labor undercuts wages and avoids payroll taxes.

The second cost is public services. Schools, hospitals, and emergency rooms absorb new arrivals. The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimated in 2023 that illegal immigration cost American taxpayers $150.7 billion annually at the federal, state, and local levels. That figure is disputed, but even half of it would fund a lot of border security and veteran care.

Public school districts from New York City to Denver saw enrollment spikes that required new teachers, bilingual aides, and classroom space. Denver Public Schools spent more than $40 million in the 2023-2024 academic year to support newly arrived migrant students. That money does not fall from the sky. It comes from property taxes and state budgets.

The third cost leaves the country entirely. Remittances to Mexico reached $66.2 billion in 2024, according to the Bank of Mexico. Most of that money was earned in the United States and sent south. It is capital that does not buy a single American product, hire a single American teenager, or rebuild a single American road.

Ask yourself why politicians who claim to care about the poor never mention these transfers.

A Commonsense Path Forward

The solution is not complicated, and it is not cruel: restore order at the border, enforce the law at the workplace, and reshape legal immigration so it rewards skill and self-sufficiency. That means finishing the barrier, restarting the Remain in Mexico policy, mandating E-Verify, reviving the 287(g) jail program, and reopening the debate over merit-based immigration reform.

These measures worked before. Apprehensions fell sharply after the Trump administration expanded border wall construction and negotiated the Migrant Protection Protocols with Mexico in 2019. When would-be migrants know they cannot simply walk in and disappear, fewer make the dangerous journey. The cartels lose customers.

Worksite enforcement should follow. E-Verify should be mandatory for every employer, with real penalties for cheating. The 1986 amnesty promised enforcement that never came. We should not repeat that fraud.

Local law enforcement should be brought back into the equation through the 287(g) program, which trains sheriffs deputies to identify immigration violators in jails. When cooperation ended in sanctuary jurisdictions, criminals with immigration holds walked free. That is not compassion. It is negligence.

Legal immigration should be reformed, not abandoned. Merit-based policies that favor English proficiency, job skills, and self-sufficiency would help wages instead of undercutting them. The RAISE Act, introduced by Senators Cotton and Perdue in 2017, aimed to cut annual legal immigration by roughly 41 percent and shift toward skills. That debate is worth reopening.

The American worker has been told to wait his turn for decades. He is done waiting. Secure the border. Enforce the law. Put citizens first. That is not radical. That is the job description.