I think Alabama’s new, ultra-radical illegal immigration legislation is stupid, a political stunt, and a P.R. nightmare for a state already struggling against a ridiculously intolerant image. That being said, something about the legislation struck me as funny and that’s because something about the attitudes of people in Alabama that don’t like illegal immigrants strikes me as funny. A majority of Alabama residents that would classify themselves as Democrats support this terrible legislation (an Alabama Democrat is someone who thinks illegal immigrants should be deported instead of shot on the spot) but virtually everyone who would consider themselves a conservative supports it. Now Alabama’s illegal immigrant population (almost all of whom are Latino as people from Sweden aren’t dying to get to AL, so let’s not pretend race doesn’t have a huge impact on this) is virtually insignificant when compared to a state like Arizona or Texas, but people here think it’s a huge problem anyway. And yet here’s the irony: Alabama conservatives don’t like illegal immigrants but fiscal conservatism is what makes the state so accessible to illegal immigrants in the first place.
What I mean is that deregulated, deunionized Alabama is the ideal state for an illegal immigrant to work in and for an employer to hire illegal immigrants. The state has almost NO private sector unions. It has almost NO labor laws. It’s a complete right-to-work state which means someone can be fired for any reason. Only one in four adults has a college diploma so comparatively little jobs require one (thus making it easy for illegal immigrants to find employment too). Alabama business laws almost always favor the corporations over the worker, and the slumlord over the tenant. Wages are pitiful, health insurance is a joke, pensions for private sector workers are virtually non-existant, income inequality is off the charts, and the state is the third lowest in the country in standard of living.
All those things and more make it an ideal place for an illegal immigrant to find a place to live and a job that will hire them. And yet no one making the argument against illegal immigrants points this out. The solution to most is “Get rid of the Mexicans, and living conditions will improve,” when the reality is that poor living conditions were the reality long before. So shame on the contradictory stance of Alabama Republican legislators that scapegoats any racial minority they can think of for Alabama’s very real standard of living problems. And extra shame on Alabama voters for falling for it.