As the historic health care vote loomed yesterday, tens of thousands of people seeking immigration reform flocked to D.C. to demand change.

According to Reuters:

Immigration is a sensitive issue in the United States where some 10.8 million illegal immigrants live and work in the shadows and where Hispanics, the largest immigrant group, are a rapidly increasing voting bloc.

Carrying signs that said "Justice and Dignity for All U.S. Immigrants" and "We just want to work," the immigration activists filled five blocks of the National Mall. Some protesters wore T-shirts that read, "Our journey as immigrants is a journey for human rights." New York Democratic Representative Nydia Velazquez said: "Every day without reform is a day that 12 million hard-working immigrants must live in the shadow of fear, and ... a day that a family is torn apart. That is wrong and it is unAmerican."Velazquez, who chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, called on Congress and the president to reform immigration laws immediately.

For the first time in U.S. history, illegal immigrants outnumber legal immigrants. We should find a way to deal with those who are here illegally and then reform the system.

Part of the problem is that illegal immigrants are exploited by U.S. businesses looking for cheap labor. Because they are unable to obtain work via legitimate methods, immigrants are left open to exposure. This hurts both Americans and immigrants.

Take the example of a chicken processing factory in Georgia that was using mostly undocumented workers and paying them low wages. Immigration raids by federal officials cost the factory 900 of its illegal workers. The factory was in desperate need of workers, but Americans are not willing to work for such low pay. To stave off closing, the factory had to act.

It increased wages and began offering services, such as child care and a shuttle to and from its remote location. Soon enough, legal workers, including many African Americans, were hired for jobs.

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Crider suddenly raised pay at the plant. An advertisement in the weekly Forest-Blade newspaper blared "Increased Wages" at Crider, starting at $7 to $9 an hour -- more than a dollar above what the company had paid many immigrant workers. The company began offering free transportation from nearby towns and free rooms in a company-owned dormitory near to the plant. For the first time in years, local officials say, Crider aggressively sought workers from the area's state-funded employment office -- a key avenue for low-skilled workers to find jobs. Of 400 candidates sent to Crider -- most of them black -- the plant hired about 200.

The loser in the original scenario is both Americans and the undocumented workers. The undocumented workers were being exploited because of their immigration status, and American workers were bottom priced out of the job market. The winner was the owner of the factory, who got to reap greater profits by exploiting both illegal immigrants and U.S. workers.

Americans refuse to work for such little money, because "they can't live on those wages, and refuse to," Debra Sabia, a professor at nearby Georgia Southern University who founded a social-service organization for the area's Latino immigrants, told the Post-Gazzette. "If you gave a survey to Americans and asked them where they'd want to work, a slaughterhouse would not be on the list. These are not jobs we aspire for our children to take."

They, however, would appear attractive to a certain group of workers if the conditions were right.

President Barack Obama has embraced a Republican immigration proposal that would provide a high-tech identification card for U.S. citizens and legal immigrants looking for work. We must also look for ways to grandfather those illegal immigrants who have been playing by the rules and tighten up our borders so we don't fall back in to this same situation again.

After passage of the health care bill, some Republicans are pushing the idea of immigration reform on to the back burner. "If the health care bill goes through this weekend, that will, in my view, pretty much kill any chance of immigration reform passing the Senate this year," said Republican Lindsey Graham.

Maybe momentum from the health care push can carry over to other issues in need of reform in this country.