>>>My brother-in-law has a couple of businesses in which all who work for him are subcontractors. Painting and constructions. His direct competition is other companies hiring illegals undercutting the bids for jobs. I know a few illegals now - most people do. Of those I know, most have sent over 25,000.00 home to their families in Mexico. They all live here in the U.S. in a single home - 14 of them. They all make enough to pay taxes but none do. They live in a 'bare-bones' existence (I consider it almost squallor) and send their $ home to Mexico.
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>>Had such a team in the neighborhood, but these guys were even living in luxury, only five of them in a two bedroom/two bathroom apartment with A/C. A van would come at about 7AM to pick them up, and they'd return at 7PM. Saturdays too, but not Sundays. Don't know whether they were legal - met them in person only when I was shovelling snow, and they borrowed the shovel. Couldn't even understand that it wasn't my shovel, that I got it from the leasing office, so they insisted on returning it to me, and I had to walk to the office again to return it :).
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>>And this "I'll live poor and send all my money home" is the usual attitude of the Gastarbeiter. It's a common phenomenon - these guys go where they can find work to feed their families.
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>And for this they are reviled by some. I honestly don't get it.
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>What's a Gastorbeiter? Don't talk foreign around here, pal ;-)

Not orbiter, Gastarbeiter, i.e. guest worker. That's the term Germans used for, well, guest workers, and so did all the Yugos who went to work, regardless of the country (and there were almost a million total of them in France, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Austria, Australia and Sweden - and probably a few in other countries as well).