The grim reality of life under Alabama's brutal immigration law

[alp227]

This is a long article from the British newspaper The Guardian about Alabaman Hispanics' lives under the new immigration law HB 56. One anecdote:

Even families legally entitled to be in the country are being caught. Cineo Gonzalez was shocked a few weeks ago when his six-year-old daughter came home from school carrying a printout. It gave details of HB56 and its implications, under the heading: "Frequent questions about the immigration law."

Gonzalez is a US permanent resident, having come from Mexico more than 20 years ago. His daughter is an American citizen, having been born in Alabama. Both are entirely legal. Yet she was one of only two children in her class – both Hispanic in appearance – who were given the printout.

Why was she singled out, Gonzalez asked the deputy head teacher. "Because we gave the printout to children we thought were not from here," came the reply.

When fools who broad-brush ALL Hispanics as potential criminals/illegal immigrants, it's not worth reasoning with them about immigration.

[elocs]

1. As Hispanics are our fastest growing minoring, let's hope they remember how the GOP treats them

and vote accordingly.

[jowsybart]

2. what about the "grim reality of life" post-immigration wage depression holocaust for americans

what about the millions of our fellow american citizens who have lost much of their former quality of life because of the cheap immigrant labor brought in by the rich to lower wages? Do they matter at all? Aren't they supposed to count for more than foreigners?

[Remember Me]

4. Overwhelmingly they take jobs that are

unsafe (meat packing plants), temporary and seasonal and back brakingly hard (fruit picking and other agricultural harvest), fairly low-paying to start with (roofing and other construction helpers, dishwashers and busboys, landscaping laborers, etc.) These workers do work that American don't want to do or can't afford to do at those wages and in the case of agriculture, they keep food prices low for ALL of us.

Now if you have a burning desire to do any of these hard, difficult, temporary, unsafe jobs at ANY pay, I'm sure there are farmers in GA and AL who will be very interested in talking to you. But my guess is that you don't, really.

H1B Visas are a much greater concern to me. THOSE workers are definitely causes wages to drop on good, safe, formerly good-paying high tech jobs. But it's not the workers who are doing it, it's the corporations. Talk to Bill Gates, for example. He's lobbying for more such workers.

Now -- if you really think illegal immigrants are responsible for lowering our wages, I've got a solution for the whole nation that will definitely put an end to illegal immigration, and rather quickly. This isn't my idea, I learned it from the late Molly Ivins. Enforce the laws already on the books against employers hiring undocumented workers. If the jobs dry up, so will the immigration. Immigration is already significantly down because our economy sucks so bad, which helps prove Molly's point.

And if you want the REAL cause of dropping wages in the U.S., look no further than NAFTA and all the other Trade agreements, brought to you by both parties.

[alp227]

5. Welcome to DU, and I encourage you to explore the site

and our discussions of immigration issues. We should be going after free trade and illegal EMPLOYERS.

[jowsybart]

6. we need to go after the rich, their cheap foreign labor and their fakeleftist allies

real leftists support their fellow working class citizens, not the rich and their cheap foreign labor

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Doctor_J]

8. It's the employers who should be punished

but that will never happen.

[midnight]

3. This makes me sick... Those with dark hair/skin are targets of this... This is wrong...

[Tutankhamun]

9. Making little girls the target

of passive aggressive racism was the low mark for racism. But now we've reached even lower -- The new low mark is set at forcing little girls who are legal citizens to act as messengers, unknowingly conveying passive aggressive racist documents to their legal citizen parents.

I suppose I can only speak for myself, but on behalf of reasonable Americans, I'd like to apologize anyway.