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The pragmatic problem with that, is that it gives the businesses an incentive to vote for and lobby politicians who will not then crack down on illegal immigrants.
If Farmers (an important lobby in rural Red heartlands) have an incentive to keep them, then Red politicians have the incentive to keep them. If you allow farmers to employ them, then the fed's will never sort them out. The Blues won't and neither will the Reds no matter who is in charge.
Yes, they have incentives to work against my interests. That's how coalitions work, unfortunately -- I don't begrudge the farmers their desire to profit, but it doesn't mean I'm willing to accede to it, either. The appropriate response then would be for the non-farmers, who are numerically superior, to vote out the politicians.
Right, but if you give them incentives to work against your interests, it becomes harder to achieve your interests. Hence removing that incentive will make it easier to reach your goals. Whether you morally condemn farmers, pragmatically you should work towards it. A two-pronged strategy. The reason Republican politicians don't do that is that farmer's lobbies are locally powerful.
Yep, it can be difficult to work against incentives. But I do not have any moral qualms with said incentives, so I can't bring myself to support removing them or punishing them. I am not a consequentialist; just because something would help me achieve a goal doesn't necessarily mean it's the right thing to do. Sometimes, the ends don't justify the means.
I'm fundamentally okay with my peers having different political terminal values from me, and pitting electoral might versus electoral might. But I do not want to criminalize their behavior merely because it's not helpful to me.
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