"Yet one can travel to many parts of the country where illegal Mexican immigration is rare and, not surprisingly, see green and neatly mowed lawns."

Borjas also points out the huge supply of low-wage illegal aliens encourages American farmers to lag technologically behind farmers in other countries.

He cites the California raisin industry as an example. Raisin production in California still requires that grapes be cut off by hand and manually turned on the drying tray. In other countries, farmers use a labor-saving technique called "drying on the vine." A cutoff of the illegal workers would encourage American farmers to adopt many of these technological innovations, and come up with new ones.

Supply and demand

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. traveled this past summer to Mexico City to meet with President Vicente Fox to discuss a proposed alliance on trade, economics, education and culture.

Although Fox promises more Mexican jobs, and billions more have been spent to "protect" the borders, the flow of Mexican workers to the United States remains steady.

"I think it's economics. It's still supply and demand that drives it," Huntsman said. "Where there are opportunities, you will see a flow of traffic to meet those opportunities."

Huntsman says Utah is a tech-based economy, and as more workers move into high tech fields, traditional industries such as mining, agricultural and manufacturing have to remain competitive and find workers.

"It isn't the heavy hand of government," Huntsman said. "It's the free-market system that determines where people find jobs and how much they pay. It's always been that way."

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Coming Thursday: Enforcement

E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com; lucy@desnews.com