The narrative of friends and family from the small town I grew up in and left, to rarely if ever revisit, reason that the immigrants work illegally for cash at meat packing plants, roofing, etc. This while drawing benefits, as unregistered/illegal immigrants. I don’t know how an undocumented person could collect benefits. Frankly I don’t know enough about any of it to say whether their narrative is accurate or not.

I have always held the opinion that even if their likely false narrative is true, those sound like extremely hard working folks being exploited and taken advantage of and points to an underlying problem that immigrants are not effectively integrated into our society through accessible legal procedures in a way that enables them to positively impact society to the greatest extent of their potential. I’d bet with living wages these folks would be filling up trade schools and all kinds of additional skilled labor roles that would be built upon and advanced generationally. I don’t understand why a country wouldn’t want injection of realized opportunity and advancement into its society, economics, and culture.