{"id":1846,"date":"2011-06-27T08:56:38","date_gmt":"2011-06-27T12:56:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/ga-hb-87-ridiculed-in-atlanta-vdt-cited.html"},"modified":"2011-06-27T08:56:38","modified_gmt":"2011-06-27T12:56:38","slug":"ga-hb-87-ridiculed-in-atlanta-vdt-cited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/ga-hb-87-ridiculed-in-atlanta-vdt-cited.html","title":{"rendered":"GA HB 87 ridiculed in Atlanta; VDT cited"},"content":{"rendered":"Who could have forseen this?\nWell, other than anyone who actually knows Georgia farmers.\nAnd the VDT becomes thought leader to the world:\n
\n“Maybe this should have been prepared for, with farmers’ input. Maybe\nthe state should have discussed the ramifications with those directly\naffected. Maybe the immigration issue is not as easy as &lquo;send them\nhome,&rquo; but is a far more complex one in that maybe Georgia needs them,\nrelies on them, and cannot successfully support the state\u2019s No. 1\neconomic engine without them.”\n<\/blockquote>\nExcept of course HB 87 doesn’t just send them home:\nit also locks up as many as it can catch, to the profit\nof private prison company CCA, at the expense of we the taxpayers.\n

\nThat’s as quoted by\nJay Bookman in the AJC 17 June 2011,\n\nGa\u2019s farm-labor crisis playing out as planned<\/a>:\n

\n\n<\/a>\nAfter enacting House Bill 87, a law designed to drive illegal immigrants\nout of Georgia, state officials appear shocked to discover that HB 87 is,\nwell, driving a lot of illegal immigrants out of Georgia.\n

\nIt might be funny if it wasn\u2019t so sad.\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n

\n

\nThanks to the resulting labor shortage, Georgia farmers have been forced\nto leave millions of dollars\u2019 worth of blueberries, onions, melons\nand other crops unharvested and rotting in the fields. It has also put\nstate officials into something of a panic at the damage they\u2019ve done\nto Georgia\u2019s largest industry.\n<\/blockquote>\nYes, they’re panicking by deploying probationers.\nLike that’s going to end well, as Bookman notes.\n

\nBookman quotes the quantification of the problem:\n

\nBarely a month ago, you might recall, Gov. Nathan Deal welcomed the\nTV cameras into his office as he proudly signed HB 87 into law. Two\nweeks later, with farmers howling, a scrambling Deal ordered a hasty\ninvestigation into the impact of the law he had just signed, as if all\nthis had come as quite a surprise to him.\n

\nThe results of that investigation have now been released. According to\nsurvey of 230 Georgia farmers conducted by Agriculture Commissioner Gary\nBlack, farmers expect to need more than 11,000 workers at some point\nover the rest of the season, a number that probably underestimates the\nreal need, since not every farmer in the state responded to the survey.\n<\/blockquote>\nSurprise, surprise!\n

\n

\nThe pain this is causing is real. People are going to lose their crops,\nand in some cases their farms. The small-town businesses that supply\nthose farms with goods and services are going to suffer as well. For\neconomically embattled rural Georgia, this could be a major blow.\n<\/blockquote>\nMaybe people in south Georgia should demand the state repeal HB 87.\n

\nWe don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia, to profit\nCCA at the expense of south Georgia farmers and taxpayers.\nSpend that tax money on rehabilitation and education instead.\n

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