Interesting New York Times article on Imagining Life Without Illegal Immigrants. One professor suggests life without illegal immigrants could be a good thing:

If there were no undocumented workers to tend to the gardening, Californians who wanted a nice lawn would pay more for it, eventually drawing low-skilled workers from other parts of the country, Professor [George J.] Borjas said, adding that American workers would be the better for it.

“The workers would be slightly wealthier and the employers would be slightly poorer, but everything would get done,” said Professor Borjas, who used to live in California. “I moved to Boston and the lawn is still green.”

You mean that the “jobs Americans won’t do” might mean “jobs Americans won’t do at the wages offered, given the presence of illegals willing to do it for less”? Say it ain’t so!

There is also information about the hidden costs of illegal immigration:

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington group that favors greater restrictions on immigration, argues that if Americans “eased our addiction to this illegal labor,” there would be less stress on the country’s social welfare system, ranging from fewer children in crowded urban schools to fewer welfare checks for the American-born families of illegal immigrants.

“Immigrants over all use at least one major welfare program at a rate 50 percent higher than natives,” Mr. Krikorian said, referring to an analysis of 2001 data by his center that found Medicaid use particularly high among immigrants. “That is not because they are morally defective. It is because they are poor and don’t have any education and they end up inevitably stumbling and having needs for the system.”

Patterico’s analysis from a few days ago is sounding better and better.