Africans Relocate to Alabama to Fill Jobs After Immigration Law

[xchrom]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-24/africans-relocate-to-alabama-to-fill-jobs-after-immigration-law.html

Esene Manga, an Eritrean refugee living in Atlanta, hadn’t heard of Albertville, Alabama until a recruiter offered him a job there. Now Manga, 22, earns $10.85 an hour cutting chicken breasts on a poultry-plant night shift, an unexpected beneficiary of a year-old law designed to drive out illegal Hispanic immigrants.

This isn’t what the law’s backers said would happen. Republican state Senator Scott Beason, a sponsor, said at a news conference last year that the restrictions on undocumented workers would “put thousands of native Alabamians back in the work force.”

Instead, it caused a labor shortage that resulted in the importation of hundreds of legal African and Haitian refugees, and Puerto Ricans, according to interviews with workers, advocacy organizations and businesses. Most were recruited by the poultry industry, in a segment of the economy that has been a heavy employer of undocumented workers, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a Washington research group.

Alabama is one of five states that last year passed immigration laws modeled on a 2010 Arizona measure largely invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court in June. Last month, an appellate court in Atlanta said many of the Alabama law’s requirements also aren’t constitutional. Other provisions, including one allowing police to arrest suspected illegal immigrants, remain in place.

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. I bet that is gonna chap Beason's ass.

In the not too long ago past, Beason would be wearing a white hood.

I hope every single person from Africa that they "import" goes on to get citizenship here.

[pampango]

2. "Many legal Hispanic employees left after the immigration law took effect, he said. The company,

which operates six plants in the state, spent $5 million to replace and train new workers..."

When legal Hispanic employees left the state, I doubt that many republicans shed a tear. Minorities leaving their state is unlikely to ruin their day.

"The Alabama law’s intent was to attack “every aspect of an illegal alien’s life,” and “make it difficult for them to live here so they will deport themselves,” Republican House sponsor Micky Hammon said during legislative debate, according to a Birmingham News report."

Kind of succinct definition of romney's "self-deportation" strategy.

"Beason, the senator, said that while he welcomes legal immigrants, he isn’t pleased by the arrival of the refugees."

Typical right-winger. We love legal immigrants, but not these legal immigrants. So do you really like legal immigrants or just say you do, so you don't sound like so much of a racist.

"Beason credits the law with a decrease in Alabama’s unemployment rate. It dropped to 8.5 percent in October 2011 from 8.8 the month before and continued to decline. Unemployment was 8.5 percent in August, the most recent month for which data is available.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that the rate fell because the labor force shrank. Fewer people had jobs in Alabama in August than did before the law."