Wage Hypocrisy: A Hard Truth for Deportation Opponents
In keeping with his campaign promise, President Donald Trump has wasted no time deporting illegal immigrants. As expected, the response has been a mix of performative selfie sadness and outright public hysteria. But if you can tune out the shrieking long enough, you’ll stumble upon an old “gotcha!”-style economic argument that’s once again making the rounds among elected officials and social media personalities.
It goes like this: “Who’s going to pick our crops?”
Setting aside the implicit racism, and granting this argument the benefit of charitable interpretation, let’s break it down and expose some glaring intellectual inconsistency.
More precisely, the claim is that illegal immigrants perform essential low-wage labor, particularly in agriculture, and that their removal would disrupt key sectors of the economy. On the surface, this argument appears both pragmatic and compassionate toward workers. However, it contains a fundamental contradiction that is rarely acknowledged: the same people who justify the exploitation of cheap illegal immigrant labor on the grounds of voluntary participation almost invariably support the very laws that prevent American workers from engaging in those same voluntary labor agreements.
This contradiction becomes apparent when critics of deportation insist that illegal immigrants should remain because they are willing to work for wages that American citizens supposedly will not accept. Their key justification is that these workers are consenting adults who freely agree to these wages and, as immigrants from poorer countries, are simply grateful for the opportunity to work and earn a living. But if willingness alone is the standard - not just for permissibility, but for making this arrangement morally good - then there is no logical reason why American workers should not also be free to negotiate their own wages without government interference. Yet, many of these same people simultaneously push for increasingly burdensome federal minimum wage laws, which explicitly prevent American workers from accepting wages below a certain threshold, even if they would otherwise choose to do so.
More than just an arbitrary restriction on what is deemed “fair”, the minimum wage significantly hinders the workforce and the development of the labor market. It denies many people - especially young, unskilled, or disadvantaged workers - the dignity of gainful employment and the opportunity to build experience. It disproportionately burdens American small businesses, which struggle to absorb the costs of mandatory wage floors, often leading to job cuts and business closures. Moreover, by artificially inflating labor costs, the minimum wage drives up the price of goods and services, disproportionately affecting consumers and making everyday necessities less affordable. In short, while intended to help workers, minimum wage laws often function as a barrier to entry into the labor market and a hidden tax on both businesses and the public.
The contradiction is clear: if voluntary participation is the justification for keeping illegal immigrants in low-wage jobs, then it should also be sufficient justification for abolishing minimum wage laws altogether. To argue otherwise is to apply one standard to illegal immigrants and another to American citizens. Those who insist on opposing mass deportations on economic grounds must confront this inconsistency. Either they should reject minimum wage laws in favor of unrestricted voluntary exchange in the U.S. economy, or they should acknowledge that their argument for retaining illegal immigrants as a labor force is built on selective reasoning and partisan politics rather than principle.
If opponents of mass deportation truly believe in the moral and economic argument for voluntary labor agreements, then they should extend that principle to all workers and call for the abolition of the minimum wage. I won’t hold my breath.