They argue (as pleasantly as possible) that the undocumented are entitled to pursue a better life in the U.S., regardless of laws that state otherwise. Big, crocodile tears slide down freshly exfoliated cheeks for the sake of the underprivileged. Feeling dismayed by it assuages the guilt of spending another $300 at the spa.

No one really believes that our guests without status don’t deserve to improve their lives. Yet, I don’t often see anyone weeping over the neglected toolboxes of American laborers. What makes their plight less urgent? It is, after all, the American blue-collar taxpayer who is losing a livelihood when the soccer mom hires a couple of foreign guys off of the sidewalk to build her patio.

If these guests without status were taking over CEO positions at your corporation and showing off their new sets of titanium golf clubs at your country club, I suspect the tides would turn. If the cushy suburban neighborhoods of the upper middle class were overrun by day laborers dropping their garbage on pristine sidewalks and pissing on manicured shrubbery, I imagine there would be a lawsuit or two.

People have complained about the insurgence of day laborers in some California neighborhoods. The laborers have been there since the early ‘80s and, despite various attempts to shoo them away, they’re still standing around and getting hired. They’re getting hired because cheap, law-breaking Americans, who wouldn’t know a screwdriver from a martini glass, keep hiring them. They’re getting hired because this state is knee-deep in the self-congratulatory bile of political correctness. So, the solution was of the “out of sight, out of mind” variety. After all, those higher on the food chain are fond of hiring slave labor, but they don’t necessarily want to see it hanging out in parking lots drinking low-end beer.

Enter Home Depot and various human rights organizations that contribute funds and materials to create the day labor center. Now, aliens can pursue untaxed work while lounging in comfort and checking their e-mails. Why, the plan went swimmingly and now day labor centers are popping up around the state in places like Glendale, Los Angeles and Burbank. It has been so successful an endeavor that every town wants one just like it. What a positively delightful solution.

So, just who is benefiting from this, pray tell? Well, we all know that common labor jobs are beneath American-born laborers. In their arrogance, American-born laborers insist on a fair wage so that they can feed their families. They’ll just have to get off their high horses or join their ranks on the unemployment line. The undocumented worker is usually more reasonable because he’s desperate to earn cash. If he were a legal resident of the U.S. and unable to find regular work, there would be several legal hiring centers that could provide him temporary placements leading to permanent work.

But, the soccer moms and the slave laborers both know the score. So, a reasonable wage could be bargained for, and Mr. and Mrs. Suburban Bliss can get their patio and feel good about helping the struggling class. At the same time, Home Depot can appear to be working for human rights while raking in the dollars offering on-premises slave labor.

Home Depot is, in effect, the Ministry of Foreign Labor. They provide the illegal workers a place to solicit jobs. The lefties fork over the cash (but no more than absolutely necessary), and Home Depot gets all of their business, be it now or later.

But, I don’t know why anyone’s arguing about this. It’s illegal. They are here illegally. Hiring them is illegal. Endorsing the hiring of them is illegal. You can put a pretty flower on it. You can write a haiku about it. It changes nothing. In the meantime, you’ve turned your back on your countrymen just to save enough chump change to cover valet parking at the club.