Do you think those jobs pay so low because of the illegals and their willingness to undercut the American worker? If they weren't there to offer that level of pay, something other than paying too low of wages would have to be done. Framing houses and concrete work come to mind in my neck of the woods. You don't see any non hispanic framers framing houses anymore or doing concrete work, and it isn't because there weren't any "legals" willing to do the work. They undercut them so bad they went out of business. I lost two accounting clients who did framing and the other did concrete work. They had illegals undercutting their prices so bad they couldn't compete . They no longer could support their family. People like them are an afterthought to our politicians in American politics. Their families are just as human and just as important as the illegals'. Granted, I also blame the contractors for hiring them which is why I am a big advocate of going after them first and hammering the hell out of them financially.
Regarding illegals who commit "non violent" crimes. I think using the term "non violent" minimizes the seriousness of other crimes as if they don't matter and don't negatively impact citizens' lives. Theft is a big deal with illegals in our area. We live on the Texas border and get a high number of illegals coming into our area and stealing anything they can from your property. We had two illegals back during the holidays try to steal my son's vehicle from our driveway. Guy at our church had his body shop broken into and had over $15,000 worth of tools and equipment taken. Got them on security video but they were long gone by the time he noticed.
Depending on which angle you run the numbers, illegals can be good for some sectors of the economy. They're great for people (like contractors) who hire them, pay them extremely low wages yet still charge the customer as if they're paying their workers American wages. But they're not good for the guy who lost his business to them and now has to find other ways to provide for his family. They're not good for the family who already has to put up with crime (such as theft) from citizens, but now has to deal with illegals stealing from them as well. I'm all for immigration, it is one of the things that has made our country great and kept us on the cutting edge of things. But I'm not for continuing to lower standards of how we allow immigrants to come in, especially to the point where we're saying "as long as it wasn't a non violent crime lets not worry about it". I don't like that approach and I don't think it should be a part of the justification for turning a blind eye to people entering the country illegally.
I'll borrow from your disclaimer and say, I'm probably in the minority on this view but I don't care.
