Did you know that illegal aliens are performing jobs that unemployed, legal Americans could otherwise use during this deep recession? I know, a shocking revelation…if you’ve been paying absolutely no attention to reality for the past few, oh, decades.

Anyway, that’s exactly why USA Today reports today. The raids that the Obama Administration and the Open-Borders crowd so despise, the ones that pick up illegal aliens and deport them back to their home countries, actually open up jobs for legal workers to fill.

When federal agents descended on six meatpacking plants owned by Swift & Co. in December 2006, they rounded up nearly 1,300 suspected illegal immigrants that made up about 10% of the labor force at the plants.

But the raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents did not cripple the company or the plants. In fact, they were back up and running at full staff within months by replacing those removed with a significant number of native-born Americans, according to a report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).

That was the most extreme example of what has become an increasingly common result of the raids: “They were very beneficial to American workers,” according to Vanderbilt University professor Carol Swain.

“Whenever there’s an immigration raid, you find white, black and legal immigrant labor lining up to do those jobs that Americans will supposedly not do,” said Swain, who teaches law and political science.

Illegal alien apologists make the raids out to be racist, close-minded events supported solely by white bigots looking to throw minorities out of the country. That’s not the case at all. Illegal aliens end up harming legal immigrants and natural-born citizens of all races, creeds, and religions. A legal Hispanic citizen will have just as much trouble getting a job filled by an illegal alien as a white man would. It has nothing to do with race, but rather legal status.

I don’t care if the illegal alien has white skin and blue eyes. Illegal is illegal, and people in this country illegally should not be occupying jobs that legal citizens, regardless of race, could otherwise fill. It’s time for Washington to wake up to this reality and get serious about immigration enforcement. It has a responsibility to people in this country legally, whether they were born here or immigrated last year.

Via Hot Air Headlines.