We can manage without them

Thomas Sowell on one of the fallacies behind the argument that illegal aliens cannot be deported but must, instead, be given amnesty:

New York’s mayor Michael Bloomberg is still pushing the line that there would be economic collapse without illegal immigrants. But, despite the scary picture of 12 million illegals being suddenly deported, the cold fact is that 12 million young Americans in the prime of life were removed from our economy to go into the military during World War II and the economy did not collapse.

These 12 million young men went into the military a lot faster than 12 million illegals can be rounded up and deported.

Yet the American economy boomed, producing an incredible amount of output, half of it going into the military to equip and support our own troops and to supply the British and the Russians with vast amounts of war materiel.