The Pinch is felt when new law is put in effect

[granfire]

Many employers in the farming and construction business are complaining about the impact the new Alabama immigration law is having on their business.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44793726/ns/us_news-life/#.To2TT7IfhWo

Rick Pate, the owner of a commercial landscaping company in Montgomery, lost two of his most experienced workers, who were in the country legally. He spent thousands of dollars training them to install irrigation systems at places like the Hyundai plant.
"They just feel like there is a negative atmosphere for them here. They don't feel welcome. I don't begrudge them. I'd feel nervous, too," Pate said.

Not all are here illegally who feel the impact.....

Likewise, schools are worried about their students who have suddenly stopped showing up for class. Out of 34,000 Hispanic students, 2,285 were absent Monday. That number increased from Friday by a few hundred. The figures show seven out of every 100 Hispanic children were out of school, even though state school officials have tried to assure parents that they won't release their names to police and that no child will be denied an education due to legal status.
At Gonzalez' mobile home community, driveways were full of cars and trucks at midday Tuesday, a time when most residents used to be at work. A resident who didn't want to be identified out of fear of the law said people are afraid to venture out during daylight.

That can't be good....idle hands are the devil's workshop after all....

The law allows police to detain people indefinitely if they are suspected of being in the country illegally and requires schools to check the status of new students when they enroll. Those elements make it perhaps the toughest law in nation.

In the current climate, everybody with a Hispanic sounding last name is suspicious....


This should be interesting....

 

[Monroe]

So any random spanish speaking person in Alabama can be picked up? How can you possibly spot an illegal immigrant? What a bunch of paranoid xenophobists.

 

[granfire]

I guess you are looking at racial profiling...anything with olive skin not tall enough to look over a mailbox is at risk...better carry that green card....

 

[JohnEdward]

The country is dependent on cheap labor. The history of slavery originates when indentured labor was thought to be getting too expensive for tobacco farmers in the 1600s. Tobacco farms wanted a greater profit margin, and they felt even back then their biggest cost was labor. An attitude that strongly prevails today in business. But today, slavery is out-lawed. Not that it would be re-instituted if given the chance (am not talking about blacks returning to slavery, am talking the institution enslaving someone). Then in other parts of the country and (prior to slavery)where there was no slaves the next best thing was debt peonage. You could say it was immigrant from start to finish, where young Englishmen and others from Europe came to the country in it's infancy and found themselves in a trap where they ended up working for nothing to the load debtor. Then later down the road where slavery didn't take hold was the exploitation of European immigrants flooding this country on promises of a new life, who arriving here got paid very little, so many so that it created a large numbers of very poor people; creating the slum. Then of course child labor laws and other job laws where created, and holidays like labor day that was one of only two days off the year many got. Then came Unions created and supported by those underpaid and exploited. All to which benefited the farmer or business owner. Not much has change out side of slavery today. Today, one of two things generally shape the labor landscape, cheap labor: legal and illegal immigrants and high unemployment whereby people will work for less and take any job offered they are over qualified for. I think we need to be reminded of all of this during such discussions.

My opinion, legal immigration across the board. Not strict state laws. Just enforce the laws we already have that are not being observed by business or government. Illegal immigration hurts everyone. And spanish speaking immigrants are not the only ones, those we and they feel they are, and we believe they are. Our Federal Government (doesn't matter which party because both have a hand in it), and many industries, and companies supports illegal immigration, and it isn't for a humanitarian reason either. Financially burden states or non-industrial states like Arizona are stressed when flooded with illegal immigration overwhelms these states and their stability. It is not like the Federal Government is giving the states money for ever illegal immigrant that lives in the state.
There has to be a balance, to maintain that balance has to be control. That would be enforcing the laws of legalization for all immigrants, no free passes to our Southern neighbors. But that would mean Government would have to enforce it, which means dishing out more money the government doesn't want to spend, nor the businesses who profit from illegal immigration, nor many tax payers. But, for states like Arizona and Alabama the cost of illegal immigration is tax money spend to keep the states from being overwhelmed and over burned. Illegal immigration is real big problem for allot of states, I don't think the propaganda and rhetoric in support of illegal immigration is justified in this sense. These states are not doing what they are doing based on race, they are not anti-immigration, they are anti-illegal immigration that has over-come there states and they are trying to get it under-control. Are these states actions the best, desperate times needs desperate measures. The problems of illegal immigration have been ignored, and tolerated by these states that says something, but now it has been too much, too long for these states to bear.

This issue isn't without controversy, politics, and emotions, but I think such discussions lose sight of the bigger picture, as it becomes us against them rather than how can we fix the problem. This country was built on the backs of legal immigrants from all parts of the world and that is forgotten or ignored by some. Extreme measure taken by Arizona, Alabama indicate a problem that has gotten out of hand. And they wouldn't had to taken them if the laws where honored. Again the issue is the control of immigration through legalization to keep a balance and not overwhelm states in a horse crap economy. There is and should not be anything wrong about legal immigration.

 

[granfire]

Well, it seems like the formula is being put to the test now, if illegals cost more or contribute more.

I see were Texas and Arizona suffer most since they are border states and everything passes through there first.

Most other states don't have that level of burden.

I see these laws - as so many others being pushed through - as lip service to the masses.
There is a branch in politics that lives of playing the sides against each other. Seems they don't have real solutions but plenty of slogans and catch phrases.

In the end I am expecting for a pretty severe backlash. After all, if the ad campaign was on the money, Alabama had already a shortage of skilled trades people. The devastation from this spring only added to the need (though the lack of funds has put a damper on things)