But if menial positions don’t scare them away, something else sideswipes their hopes – illegal aliens who have already stolen work they’d like to have, who keep wages lower than they would otherwise be and who are themselves frequently exploited, sometimes sweating for less than the minimum wage.

One answer is to send the illegals packing, thus eventually freeing up millions of jobs, and here is another: Change immigration laws to favor the skilled and educated, thus boosting the economy and helping it grow.

Please, please, skip the argument that American citizens won’t do the work – they already constitute the vast majority of workers in virtually every field employing illegals – and cut out the blather that enforcement of our immigration laws would be either impossible or cruel or that only a bigot would worry more about the welfare of citizens than taking care of residents breaking the law.

Hardly anyone is suggesting a massive, national sweep of the illegal aliens. The need is for an insistent crackdown on employers who have first been equipped by the federal government with reliable methods of figuring out who is legal and who isn’t