It’s my impression that illegals are first hired/first fired, and also that many of them provide “optional” services– gardening, restaurant bussing, etc. As legal citizens pull in their spending horns due to the economy, these spending items might be the first to go.

Some anecdotes:

1) A commentor on another econ blog, some number of months ago, said that the “brown” people (whether green card or illegal) working construction were the first to be let go. She had talked to a Guatemalan guy who was planning to go back to Central America to look for work there, because work had dried up here. This was before we saw the dip in construction employment numbers here in SD/on Rich’s charts. My take was that the “shadow employees” were let go first, hiding the impact on overall construction employment till later in the housing downturn.

2) A headline in the U-T, a couple of months ago, said that Tijuana border crossing traffic was way down.

[/anecdotes]

What I hate is when people on both sides of the argument lump “immigration” and “illegal immigration” together and then everybody gets into a hairball about it. I have no problem with people who immigrate legally or get their green card, it’s the fence-jumpers who get on my nerves.

I have to wonder how much the price of housing here in SD is due to illegals cramming 10 and 15 to a house and paying whatever the landlord demands because hey, it’s only a couple hundred each for them.

It’s clear that San Diego housing is overcrowded. Go down any street in Mira Mesa or Clairemont and see how many cars are parked along the curb by people doubling and tripling up in their houses.