The newest immigration news is being covered in Alabama, where officials are having a very hard time finding workers to maintain the state’s farms after its new, very harsh immigration law ousted its very low-paying illegal workers.
Implemented as a way to free up jobs for American citizens (Alabama’s unemployment rate is particularly high at 9.3%), the new law has proven to be rather problematic. The jobs that the illegal immigrants left open once they were ousted were as agricultural field hands. This type of work requires a lot of physical labor, and the people of Alabama were described as not “physically able or mentally tough enough to perform the work.” For some others, the pay was too low.
This story provides concrete evidence that the argument of immigrants stealing American jobs is simply a myth because, as many have pointed out, most Americans are not willing to take the low-paying, very physically exhausting jobs that immigrants are willing to take.
