BIRMINGHAM | Jerry Spencer had an idea after Alabama's tough new law against illegal immigration scared Hispanic workers out of the tomato fields northeast of Birmingham: Recruit unemployed U.S. citizens to do the work, give them free transportation and pay them to pick the fruit and clean the fields.
After two weeks, Spencer said Monday, the experiment is a failure. Jobless resident Americans lack the physical stamina and the mental toughness to see the job through, he said, and there's not much of a chance a new state program to fill the jobs will fare better.
Gov. Robert Bentley has called such claims "almost insulting" to Alabamians.
Facile sound bites and slogans about "illegal" Mexican immigrants [who have been invited by local businesses and hired by them] taking jobs away from citizens during a period of high unemployment were used to fuel passage of a racist anti-immigrant bill aimed at undocumented workers of color and their families living in Alabama. There were claims about how these illegals were hurting the economy by using resources like schools and hospitals.
Last week the news story showed a schools Superintendent pleading with Hispanic parents to bring their children back to the schools after hundreds in the Tuscaloosa area and thousands across the state have left the system when the law went into effect. Schools lose funding when their student population level drops. This week the above article appeared showing how local farm businesses across the state are losing tens of thousands of dollars, and that the supposed "unemployed" laborers are not showing up or willing to do the work abandoned by the Hispanic workers after the Nazi-like law went into effect. As in Georgia, not even Alabama parolees or inmates are eager to take the jobs and the Constitution probably would not allow the state to force them back into the "chain gangs" of old.
The problem with sound bites, political slogans and jingoism to advance a cause rather than hard evidence is that the problems ultimately come to light. Research, including the experience in Georgia, showed that the labor shortage was predictable. “Ghost-like” images are used to incite and create irrational fears, like claims that Hispanics were taking jobs away from citizens eager to fill them. When light is shed on these claims, they disappear from lack of substance, just like shadows and ghosts. All that is left exposed is the irrational hatred and bigotry and ignorance. There is also dishonesty. How many of those who have posted callous replies attacking welfare recipients would line up the next day for tomato picking jobs if they were laid off tomorrow. What if they were told, no unemployment benefits if you refuse to work in the fields or a chicken processing plant? I suspect there would be a very different attitude about “entitlements” in that case, assuming basic intelligence.
The reason Gov. Bentley had to qualify his comment to say "almost" insulting is that the facts show that Alabamians are not willing to take the jobs left open when the Hispanics were driven out. Many ignorant and bigoted Alabamians have responded that people on welfare and the sick should be trucked to the fields and forced to perform the jobs. This ignores that fact that the unemployment statistics about the labor force used to support the legislation are not made up of people on welfare. It consists primarily of able bodied people out of work and who have not yet given up on finding employment. They are the ones that comprise the 9.9% unemployment rate. And they have not come forward to take the farm labor jobs abandoned in fear by the hispanic workers.
