Jim Galloway quotes GA Ag. Commissioner Gary Black:

“One of the discussions we have to have is, do we want to have our
food produced here or somewhere else? I don’t think Wal-Mart is
going to cease to carry cucumbers. I think they’re going to get them
somewhere,”

Also in Galloway’s AJC column yesterday,

Gary Black and the shifting debate over illegal immigration,
Black won’t back off HB 87, but admits it’s the source of the problem:

The state agriculture commissioner is walking a fine line. “Let me
be clear. My position from a standpoint of amnesty and pathways to
citizenship has not changed one iota,” he said.

Nor has Black renounced HB 87. Rather, state efforts to enforce federal
immigration laws — blocked as a consequence of lawsuits — have
contributed to “a sea change” in Washington’s attitude, he said.

“Without HB 87 and some of the other proposals, I don’t know
that we’d be having this discussion about changing the guest-worker
program,” Black said.

Black seems to have organized some interesting timing of a report release
by his department:

But another factor in the shifting of tides are the hard numbers rolling
in. Georgia’s economy is poised to take a $391 million hit and shed
about 3,260 jobs this year because of farm-labor shortages, according
to a report released by the state’s agricultural industry — while
Black was in Washington.

In the middle of the largest downturn Georgia has seen since the Great
Depression, it is possible that some people are rethinking the wisdom
of slapping around our largest industry.

Now there’s a concept!

And who does HB 87 really benefit?
CCA, which runs the ICE prison in Georgia.

We don’t need a CCA private prison in Georgia.
Spend those tax dollars on rehabilitation and education.

-jsq