From the AP propaganda piece "Illegal immigrants afraid to get storm aid" (link):

Rumors of deportations are rife, although U.S. officials have suspended for 45 days a requirement that employers check workers' identification. [Vicente] Fox also said the United States has promised not to send people home in the immediate aftermath, although Washington has not confirmed that.

From the WaPo's "Trying to Absorb the Newly Unemployed" (link):

The one-day job fair here attracted about 3,000 Hurricane Katrina evacuees settling into Dallas. It also enticed a few local unemployed residents, some of whom worry that the inflow of new workers will intensify competition for work in an area where jobs -- particularly in low-skill sectors -- are already tough to come by...

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that 400,000 jobs were lost throughout the Gulf Coast due to Katrina...

...Fewer positions for general labor were available. A recruiter for $10-an-hour meat-packing positions at Tyson Foods said that he often places people in jobs at one of the company's plants in rural Kansas but that fewer positions have been open in Texas.

Over the past few years, the state's unemployment rate has remained around 5 or 6 percent, but that figure does not reflect the increasing competition in the market for low-skill jobs, [Daniel S. Hamermesh, an economics professor at the University of Texas at Austin] said. In Texas, those jobs -- mainly in hotels, restaurants, manufacturing and construction -- often are filled by the state's large population of first-generation immigrants from Mexico, he said. [those are no doubt mostly or almost all illegal aliens -- LW]...

[...The League of United Latin American Citizens, a "national Latino advocacy group", thinks things are going to work out A-OK. Uh-huh...]

...Ramona Rayford, 25, lives in Dallas and has been looking for retail positions for six months. She said her last job was in a clothing warehouse without air conditioning and with low pay.

..."It's like [employers] push us out [of] the way. They know the Hispanics will do it and take $7 an hour or $5 an hour," Rayford said. "I know they have it hard, too..."

So, to summarize:

The Bush administration and the GOP leadership have a distinct cheap labor policy, designed to benefit employers at everyone else's expense.

Meanwhile, over the Democratic Party's fantasy world, it's all sugarcanes and ice cream. We can have both millions of "undocumented immigrants" and jobs for all!

But, over in reality, thousands of those who survived the hurricane will now have to deal with tremendous job competition from millions of illegal aliens. We need a political party that isn't corrupt to straighten all this out. UPDATE: The author of the story is Eduardo Castillo of the Associated Press.