The illegal immigrants come seeking higher wages, steady employment and a chance at better lives for their families. They cross the border in remote stretches where there are no fences or they pay traffickers to sneak them past border guards.
Then they work as maids, harvest crops or toil hunched in sweatshops.
As familiar as this sounds, this is not the United States or Europe, but China, which is attracting an increasing number of undocumented workers to fill the bottom rungs of its booming economy. Tens of thousands of foreigners from Southeast Asia, North Korea and even faraway Africa are believed to be working here illegally.
And those promoting the illegal immigration have the same motivations as elsewhere:
Labor shortages in China’s export-heavy eastern coastal regions are driving demand for foreign workers. So are Chinese workers’ calls for higher wages, which are cutting into employers’ profits. …
It’s an unlikely reversal for a country that until recently seemed to have an endless supply of cheap labor. But rapid development and urbanization are just as quickly raising workers’ expectations. Young, rural Chinese have fled the farms for cities. Factory workers are choosing to strike rather than accept minimal pay. In their wake they’re leaving openings that foreign workers are eager to fill.
Strikes? Higher wages? Who do they think they are? Bring in the illegals!