Pointing fingers is easy, first, i am not american, but i lived in NYC for many years, studied and paid for the Uni, so I was legal. I am a journalist and worked, also legally, for the news.
The rotten U.S. Economy needs the illegals, to keep costs in certain areas low and lets face it, those guys work the jobs, no american wants to. Yeah, they don't pay taxes, but what they earn, they put it back into the economy, paying rent, food, buying the low quality american cars and so and so on.
Also, don' t forget that the average nanny or gardener is hired by many tax paying american citizens, who appriciate the cheap, illegal labour very much. Society is the root of the problem, not politics and government. And consider for one moment the destructive impact on the economy, if the illegals are forced out, unless you can convince the big u.s. Corporations to re-install the millions of jobs, which have been outsourced and caused parts of the poverty problem. You can hardly blame politics or illegals or 1.000 $ more or less in your pocket for the crappy situation the country is in, but it is most easy to blame the weakest part of the chain.
You guys don't exactly are the cherry on top of the pie anymore. I don't mean this as an offense, is just just how the truth looks like and it is time to face it.
I actually hopped south of the border, living in Mexico City for a bunch of years now and the economic situation is better then NYC, no kidding. Surely, the countryside here is a complete different story.