Many people frame the illegal immigration debate in the context of the amount of social services provided. Others concentrate on barriers meant to stem the flow of aliens from the south. There's the traditional "they took our jobs" vs. "they do the work Americans don't want to."

Not lost on us is the fact these 12 million or 20 million (depending on whose statistics you believe) undocumented workers are human beings deserving compassion as the nation struggles to find a solution. We also recognize they are unwitting players caught up in an economic conundrum.

There is an element of the classic supply-and-demand relationship seemingly absent from public debate. It is a given that businesses constantly look for ways to decrease their costs of production. As labor is often one of, if not the, biggest factors of production, industries target it as an area for reduction.

There are numerous methods of accomplishing such a goal. One is to lay-off or downsize and have remaining employees pick up the slack. Another is to automate operations, lessening the need for human beings. Outsourcing certain positions has become popular, as the employer can at least eliminate benefits such as health insurance and retirement contributions.

An even more popular option has been to send segments of the operation overseas, eliminating U.S. wage requirements in the process. We're all familiar with the sweatshops, of course, but they're more the exception than the norm.

Developing and underdeveloped countries, where wages are not even in the same ballpark as they are in the United States, are full of citizens eager to work. Take a job that pays $23 per hour here, transfer it elsewhere where the prevailing wage is 50 cents and pay them $3. It's win-win, correct? There's enough savings for the company to transfer its entire factory and still increase profits.

Never mind the American employee who was earning $23 per hour; after all, we're a service economy, not a manufacturing one. (Actually, that is a problem, but a subject for a different editorial.)

But what about the industry that can't pick up and move? It's been relatively easy to move textile, automobile and telemarketing operations overseas. The case is decidedly different for agricultural products, meatpacking plants, domestic help and the roofing industry, just to name a few examples. In these instances, proximity of labor simply isn't a variable.

So how do such industries obtain the same competitive advantage offered to others that can exploit inexpensive labor from other countries? Why, bring them here of course. What's the difference? We would offer: Not a thing.

We would encourage our elected officials in Washington and Topeka to consider seriously this inherent imbalance between industries in utilizing the global labor pool. Until this gap is closed or at least narrowed, economic forces will trample any social remedies trumpeted in the name of halting illegal immigration.

Editorial by Patrick Lowry

plowry@dailynews.net