I'm not an economist, but....

Let's say the housing market begins to collapse. Let's say that affects other sectors of the economy, and people get upset. Let's say that many of those upset people put pressure on various levels of government to crack down on illegal immigrants--or at least those who haven't left the country on their own already because there are no longer as many jobs.

Now let's suppose that the government actually succeeds in throwing out the nation's estimated 12 million remaining illegal immigrants. Let's also suppose that those illegal immigrants lived in apartments, perhaps even houses.

Now let's suppose that you have lost your job and would like to rent out your basement as an apartment, or even sell your house, but now have to compete with an extra 12 million people's worth of empty dwellings. Or else let's suppose that an evil senator we'll call B. B. voted for a bill through which the government bought some failing companies in the real estate sector and is hoping they will stop failing and can be sold off as private businesses again.

Won't you be glad then that all those immigrants are gone?