Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant has decided he wants to bring the Arizona immigration bill to Mississippi.
Before he does that, we probably should get a better handle on the impact illegal immigration has on Mississippi.
Via WLBT:
The informational clearing house website statemaster.com says Mississippi has about 8,000 workers, and we’re ranked 39th in the country. That’s fewer than Alabama, which charts 24,000 illegals, and more than Louisiana, which may have as few as 5,000.
But Lieutenant Governor Phil Bryant says Mississippi’s numbers were much larger when he spearheaded a study back in 2006, and they’re only growing. “50,000 illegal immigrants, if I remember correctly, that cost us $25 million,” he says.
The cynic in me says this is Bryant just trying to find a good wedge issue. Looking past the cynic in me, I think back to what David Hampton wrote this weekend:
Immigration reform? We can’t, won’t nor do we want to deport the millions of illegal immigrants, nor are we willing to take steps necessary to secure the border. It will involve making illegals, legal.
I believe that the LT. Governor is not focused on the illegal immigrants. What he is really focused on is restricting the civil rights that everyone else has. I don’t believe that Mississippi has an illegal immigration problem and if it did this law would not solve it.
The main reason we haven’t been able to solve the problem so far is because the immigrants provide a cheap and controllable work force. The companies that like the cheap labor don’t really want the system changed.
Just more proof to my opinion that this man never had an original thought. The governor of Arizona is getting plenty of publicity from this law (and apparently approval) so he has to jump on the band wagon. It’s horrible to think that he will probably be our next governor.