How illegal immigration into the US harms poor US Hispanic citizens

This is from an e-mail sent to me by an immigration reform activist from the US. The cause of the right of immigrants from Mexico and other Third World nations to emigrate into the US is one very dear to the hearts of many human rights advocates in both Australia and the US. In Australia this theme is frequently discussed between ABC Radio National's Phillip Adams and his regular US commentator Bruce Shapiro. As an argument supposedly for further migration whether legal or illegal they will argue that if middle class US citizens need live-in nannies, cheap fast food and cheap construction costs then they have not moral right to oppose immigration. However, this ignores the fact that it is not ordinary poor Americans who need these supposed benefits from migration. In fact the evidence is that poor Americans, including Hispanic US citizens are gravely harmed by the influx of illegal immigrants.

While I refuse to do what many journalists do, and imply or assume that Hispanics all walk in lockstep, a huge number of New Mexico Hispanics, at least, are furiously loyal to the United States, and there is some level of xenophobia against Mexicans. There is a reality among Hispanic "elites" that is not grasped. I'll give you an example. My ex-husband and I had a big landscaping project to do at our place in Los Alamos. I'd saved up my salary to hire someone to do it, since we were both too busy and lacked the tools needed. I ran a classified in the Espanola paper trying to hire someone to do the work. I got a huge number of calls, but one guy in particular impressed me, so I asked him to come up and quote me the job. Well, the quote was ridiculous (as in low!) Always the soul of tact, I blurted out, "Are you nuts? That's five days work and that's all you want to charge me? You can't pay for your gasoline on that!" He looked me square in the eye and said, "I have several kids. We're running low on groceries, I need this job, and I can't risk you giving it to an illegal. If it means I work for almost nothing per-hour, that's what I'll do." Needless to say, I hired him and paid him a decent wage, but it was a dramatic illustration of what's happening here, especially when Sear's, whom we hired to put a new roof on our house, turned up with an all-immigrant crew!