PolitiFact - Austin American Statesman Truth-O-Meter says:
"In December 2008, the Perryman Group, a Waco-based economic research firm, prepared an analysis of the economic impact of undocumented workers on business activity for Americans for Immigration Reform, a Houston group founded by "Americans concerned with the destructive measures being taken and considered regarding immigration and its impact on the business community, employees and consumers."
"Upshot: Eliminating the undocumented workforce would result in an immediate loss of 8.1 million jobs, according to the report, and a total eventual loss of 2.8 million jobs after the market has had time to adjust.
"If all undocumented workers were removed from the workforce, a number of industries would face substantial shortages of workers, and Americans would have to be induced into the labor pool or provided incentives to take jobs far below their current education and skill levels," according to the report. "For this phenomenon to occur to a meaningful extent, substantial wage escalation would be necessary."
"Ray Perryman, the economist behind the Perryman Group, told us that skill level is a key factor. "A lot of the unemployed people right now are highly skilled professionals, and would have no experience with these primarly manual labor-type jobs that the undocumented workers perform," he said. Plus, he said, the demand for jobs that undocumented workers often hold, like construction and hospitality gigs, is low thanks to the recession.
"Smith offered no studies backing up his statement, while we found two studies that found that employment would actually decline if undocumented workers were suddenly deported. Meantime, for various reasons experts across the spectrum said it's not believable that unemployment would halve should illegal workers vanish.
"Smith's simple logic is too simplistic. We rate his statement as False."
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