May 1 Illegal Immigrant Walkout a Terrible Idea - For Them

The planned May 1st protests by illegal immigrants will be counterproductive. While their point is to show how important illegal immigrant labor is to the U.S. economy and their aim is full amnesty, their rationale is out of whack.

First, Americans are already fed up with these protests. Illegals have had several in the past two months and they have made their voices heard. The more they have, the more Americans get upset with their 'demands' for equal rights.

More importantly, a 1-day boycott is pointless. A boycott/strike is only useful if a group is willing to to continue the boycott for a prolonged/unexpected time period. As Milton Friedman has told us many times, non-union workers will act according to each person's best interests. If illegal immigrants stop working, they stop making money and/or stop sending payments back home. Most cannot afford to do this and everyone knows it. So the point of the 1-day rally? I suppose it is to show they could have an effect on our economy if they were willing to do it every day, which they certainly would not. Their other alternative is to go back to their home country, where they earn a small fraction of the wage they get in the U.S.

Alternatively, if there was no illegal labor here in the U.S., we would see a forced increase in wages for many low-skilled jobs and many employers will suffer - but eventually the wages will simply be passed on to consumers. Farmers might charge higher prices, landscapers would need to hire staff, and Hollywood actors would need new nannys but our lives would not be destroyed.
So who really needs whom here?