NY Times: Illegal Immigration Drives Exploitative ‘Underground Economy’

Illegal immigration to New York City over the last year and a half is driving exploitation in the workforce where border crossers and illegal aliens are preyed on and swindled into jobs that leave them with few earnings.

While Democrats such as Mayor Eric Adams (D) and Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) have repeatedly suggested that welcoming illegal immigration to New York is compassionate and humane, stories from border crossers and illegal aliens paint a vastly different picture.

In interviews with the New York Times, multiple border crossers and illegal aliens — who have arrived in New York City with the other 110,000 migrants since the spring of last year — detail how they are being exploited and extorted in the city’s “underground economy.”

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One such Venezuelan man, with a wife and three children, told the Times he has been left with thousands in debt after taking out a loan to pay Mexican drug cartel smugglers to get him and his family across the United States-Mexico border.

The man is now renting a moped for $400 a week and paying a weekly $150 fee to use an UberEats account under the name “Jessica” so he can make deliveries across Manhattan and Brooklyn — his family’s main source of income.

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During one week in July, the man said he racked up nearly $900 through making UberEats deliveries but was left with just about $300 when his moped rental payment was due and after paying the woman he rents his account from.

Meanwhile, the man’s wife told the Times she is cleaning homes in Queens for just $80.

An Ecuadoran man who spoke to the Times said he figured living in the U.S. would be much easier than his native Ecuador. Ultimately, though, he has found it difficult to live. The man said he is working 12-hour shifts delivering food on a moped just to pay off his smuggling debts to the cartels.

The interviews come as reports, for months, have circulated about migrant children as young as 14 years old selling candy in New York City’s often dangerous subway system to make money for their families, who recently arrived from the border.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.