Global Comment: No Migrants, No Food: How Anti-immigration Laws are Creating Farm Worker Shortages

realsesmith-deactivated20190307:

The migrant worker shortage is an entirely manufactured issue, created by draconian anti-immigration laws, part of a growing national trend in the US. All 50 states proposed immigration-related legislation this year, including tough ‘papers, please’ mandates ordering law enforcement to stop ‘suspicious’ individuals, compelling officers to verify immigration status in routine police matters, and requiring use of the flawed E-Verify system to confirm that workers are eligible for employment in the US. Some of the harshest segments of these controversial laws have withstood legal challenges in state courts, and the naked racism on display in the arguments for byzantine immigration legislation is evidence of the success of right-wing anti-immigration rhetoric, which has effectively sown fear and panic among many whites in the US.