If we really deported all the undocumented aliens, as so many Republican politicians seem to be asking for (led by Sarah Palin again, who wants to hire enough ships to send them all back across the ocean to Mexico), we would ruin our economy.
- Who would make the beds and clean up in the 50,000 hotels and about 4.6 million hotel rooms in the United States?
- Who would work in the harvests in the California Central Valley?
- Who would lay bricks, pave roads, paint bridges, and work in factories all over the United States in mostly low-paying jobs?
- Who would drive around to empty the portable toilets at outdoor concerts?
- Who would bus tables and wash dishes at the 616,000 restaurants in the United States?
- Who would handle our luggage at airports?
- Who would pick up the garbage in New York City?
I realize that not all people doing the jobs I just listed are undocumented, but many, many are. Things would get pretty ugly pretty quickly without immigrants. Not all immigrants are illegal. But 11 million, we estimate, are.
Do we really want to deport 11 million people?