text: if the oil industry used cheap illegal immigrant labor would the price of gas go down?   no - the oil industry doesn't spend a large percentage of it's money on employees - i am one.   the money is spent in technology, and processes of actually drilling the well. it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to drill a single well, and the well spends the better majority of it's life simply paying itself off.   the only reason the oil companies make alot of money is because the industry is huge. we only make about a 7% profit, when costs are taken into consideration, where bottled water companies make a 75 - 200 % profit margin.