we don't depend on ILLEGAL immigrants to do those jobs, the illegal immigrants have driven the wages for those jobs so low they're the only ones willing to take them.
We also have a welfare state where it's preferable to be on welfare and unemployed than get a job to many.
There's lots of stuff we could fix...
The real problem is employERS willing to break the law for cheap labor.
Hal, I know you live in the land of fruit and nuts, but aren't you even being a bit harsh? Welfare at best offers stipends of something like $600 per month, with maybe some food stamps and energy assistance thrown in. Tell me how even a single person (who would not even qualify for this high of a stipend) is going to make it long term on this?
So, who picks all of that cheap affordable California farm produce? Who fills the jobs of being herders or cowboys on all of those vast western ranches? Who is in the back kitchen washing the dishes, handling the fryers, or prepping the food at your local takeout places? Including Taco Bell? Who is doing the roofing and residing and driveway replacements? The landscaping? Mowing the lawns? Becoming nannies and housekeepers?
It is nowhere as simple as you state it to be. None of the aforementioned jobs offer (usually) a sustainable wage to even a single person, much less someone trying to support a family with only that job. So, of course those jobs will go to those willing to fill them, the undocumented workers who find the options here FAR better than what they have in their own countries of origin, plus overall better systems of schooling, healthcare, and infrastructure.
Why penalize people already here who ARE productive?