Earlier this month, Alabama passed a new set of guidelines for stopping illegal immigration.  These new laws are so strict, and represent such a huge violation of civil and human rights, that a mass exodus of Latinos has been making its way out of the state.  Landed immigrants, American citizens, and undocumented migrants alike have been abandoning their homes out of the fear that they could be imprisoned for simply appearing to be Latino.

This law had a great deal of GOP support.  It was supposed to be good for the “American” unemployed, they could take the jobs left vacant by newly evicted immigrants.

Instead, farms all over the state are suffering.  Even the unemployed Alabama residents willing to take farm jobs don’t want to do the hard labor of digging up sweet potatoes.  Alabama is looking to lose as much as billions of dollars in agriculture because there is nobody to pick the crops.

The people of Alabama have very little time to come to grips with the fact that they absolutely rely on undocumented workers.  And we as a nation need to understand how much we depend on people working with no benefits and incredibly long hours doing back breaking labor.

Thank you, Alabama, for proving exactly how dependent we all are on a system of marginalization and oppression.  And good luck sorting that out.