Though the 2012 Republican presidential field continues to tack hard right on immigration, the candidates have thus far stayed silent on the topic of Alabama’s devastating new immigration law.
As the New York Times reports today, Latino residents of Alabama have already started to flee the state, with potentially devastating effects for businesses and civic life.
Writes the Times:
Critics of the law, particularly farmers, contractors and home builders, say the measure has already been devastating, leaving rotting crops in fields and critical shortages of labor. They say that even fully documented Hispanic workers are leaving, an assessment that seems to be borne out in interviews here. The legal status of family members is often mixed — children are often American-born citizens — but the decision whether to stay rests on the weakest link.
