Tea Party and Mississippi FAIR back Alabama-style immigration legislation

[pampango]

"This law applies to everyone, not just to people who are south of us or Hispanic by descent. But look at the crime and violence that we now see in Mexico," Republican Governor Phil Bryant said during a news conference hosted by the Mississippi Federation for Immigration Reform and Enforcement and the Mississippi Tea Party. "The border - south of these United States lies a country that seems to be in chaos."

Dr. Rodney Hunt, a Jackson-area surgeon who is president of MFIRE (the Mississippi arm of FAIR), said government has an obligation to protect citizens from "problems of massive, uncontrolled illegal immigration." "We believe that this legislation will greatly reduce the number of illegal immigrants in our state and open up jobs for our citizens," Hunt said.

Roy Nicholson, chairman of the Mississippi Tea Party, said illegal immigration infringes on citizens' rights to private property. "We expect people who are not citizens of our great country to respect our rights and not be in our country illegally," Nicholson said.

The bill says law enforcement officials should check for immigration status when "a reasonable suspicion exists" that a person is in the U.S. illegally. It would ban officers from considering race, color or national origin when making that decision, although Bill Chandler of the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliances has said repeatedly that he believes it could lead to profiling.

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/article/20120301/NEWS01/203010331/Bryant-backs-immigration-enforcement-bill?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE%7Cp

Mississippi is the latest republican state to take a shot at ALEC-drafted restrictive state immigration law. Republicans just took control of the Mississippi House in January. This type of legislation had been introduced previously, but the Democratic-controlled House had killed it. Things look better for this legislation now.

I understand there is a special provision in Mississippi's legislation exempting foreign business executives from being subject to a immigration status check. Alabama had several embarrassing and potential damaging episodes of foreign automobile executives complaining about harassment.

[Zalatix]

1. "Here's to The State of Mississippi" says it all.