The economics of illegal immigration

Rob is clearly a supporter of illegal immigration, and up until this point I have not been. However, the pro-business aspect of it is slowly becoming more and more appealing to me. Key quote from his article in CNN Money:

"This is a huge untapped market with people that live and work in this country and are capable of buying homes to realize the American dream," said Chan Peterson, executive vice president and head of community banking at Banco Popular, one of the earliest banks to enter this field.

He added that there's a common misperception that illegal immigrants will be more likely to default on their loans than a documented resident. But the company has found that there is no higher rate of default in this loan portfolio than any other market the company serves.

"There's a pride that comes with people moving from renting to owning and we've found that these borrowers are driven to hang on to their homes," Peterson said.

Psychologically speaking, this may actually hold water. Yet judging from the amount of "pride" I've seen in many Latino immigrants in being here... I'll have to go with the classic "I'll believe it when I see it."