You&#x27;re thinking about the state of the economy today and yesterday.  Maybe you&#x27;re only thinking about people who grew up south of the southern border.  Low skill immigrants come from many places.  Many pay lots of money to get here, if they don&#x27;t see a market for their low skills, there is no reason to come here.  Low hanging fruit [low skills jobs] are being replaced by automation, slowly, but it&#x27;s on its way.  Currently there is a net negative low skills immigrant flow.  As automation accelerates, it&#x27;s likely to increase low skills immigrant outflows.  Conversely, we may see more net inflows of mid and high skills immigrants.<p>And, as minimum wages go up, high school graduates become more willing to work.  At $10 you may not find manual labor worthwhile, but at $15 it looks more enticing.  Now, immigrants typically work a little harder, but not so much to overcome a lack of education and poor communication skills --which can take years to develop if Eng is not their native lang.<p>As tech advances and &quot;hollows out&quot; low skilled labor from advanced economies, these economies will struggle to keep their mid skills labor market employed.