Immigration Laws and Tomatoes in Alabama

We hear a lot about "immigration reform" in the US. As the term has been used by the White House, it has typically carried with it some sort of proposal as to how illegal immigrants currently in the US could gain legal status and some form of amnesty.

States, however, have been passing harsh anti-immigrant laws which target Spanish-speaking immigrants mainly from Mexico and Central American countries.

First we had one from Arizona. Alabama has an anti-immigrant law that recently went into effect.

I have heard some of the rhetoric from groups like the Minutemen who have advocated for these laws. They usually boil down to "We don't like Mexicans."

There have been periodic, recurrent waves of anti-immigrant sentiment (maybe I ought to say "fever") in the US. At one point there was huge anti-Chinese sentiment and laws were passed barring Chinese immigration. Chinese men who had entered the US were unable to bring their wives to this country until the law was repealed.

It's ironic that everyone seems to forget that, unless he happens to be a Native American, he and all of us stem from immigrants. So it's a matter of, once you are in, pull up the ladder so no one else can come in.

In the case of Alabama, it's becoming clear that the law is having some bad and probably unforeseen consequences. Without immigrant agricultural workers Alabama's tomato farmers haven't got the manpower to harvest their crops and tomatoes are too ripe on the vine to successfully ship, or they're falling to the ground and rotting. I'm not sure what percentage of Alabama's gross state product comes from raising tomatoes, but Alabama may have shot itself in the foot.

Frankly, if legislation motivated by bigotry, ignorance, short-sightedness, etc., backfires, I find it hard to be sympathetic.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein