Huge fallacy: undocumented immigrants don’t contribute to society.

Truth: undocumented immigrants do tremendously important work in inhumane conditions and for completely unfair wages so that Americans can eat cheap food.

Test: Georgia Republican lawmakers recently passed legislation geared at pushing undocumented, “illegal” immigrants out of the state of Georgia.

Test Result: Georgia, which relies heavily on farming, is letting millions of dollars worth of crops (blueberries, melons, onions, etc) rot in its fields and politicians are now scrambling to ‘solve’ the problem. Well, not really letting, since they want and need the crops, but what can you do when you force the ‘useless’ farmworkers out of your state?

More details:

After enacting House Bill 87, a law designed to drive illegal immigrants out of Georgia, state officials appear shocked to discover that HB 87 is, well, driving a lot of illegal immigrants out of Georgia. It might be funny if it wasn’t so sad. Thanks to the resulting labor shortage, Georgia farmers have been forced to leave millions of dollars’ worth of blueberries, onions, melons and other crops unharvested and rotting in the fields. It has also put state officials into something of a panic at the damage they’ve done to Georgia’s largest industry. Barely a month ago, you might recall, Gov. Nathan Deal welcomed the TV cameras into his office as he proudly signed HB 87 into law. Two weeks later, with farmers howling, a scrambling Deal ordered a hasty investigation into the impact of the law he had just signed, as if all this had come as quite a surprise to him.

Yes, too many Republican lawmakers have a hard time discerning the effects of the ideologically-driven policies they propose (and sometimes pass). This is even more true for long-term issues, I would say.

Aside from anti-immigration laws like this, we also see them proposing:

inaction on global climate change (which is already harming crops across the U.S., food prices, food security, and, thus, everyone who is dependent on cultivated food… which is basically everyone);

tax policies and other policies making the rich richer and the rest of us poorer;

policies that deregulate important food and agricultural policies designed to protect us from harmful chemicals or scientific manipulation.

In the next voting season, I recommend two things:

Vote! (and not for Republicans supporting such policies) Run for office! Challenge the backwards-thinking Republicans and ‘moderate’ Democrats that propose and pass such horrible policies.

More thoughts?

h/t Crooks & Liars

Related Stories on Eat Drink Better:

Photos via faul & Tom Gill (lapstrake)