See also: Immigration: Myth v. Reality
The opening speaker for tonight's town hall forum in Madison, where public officials will propose introducing a bill in the state's next legislative session similar to a controversial Arizona law, says the law is needed to keep immigrants, primarily Hispanics, from gaining the right to vote.
"When those people race across the border looking for jobs, they ain't coming to Bully's Soul Food Shack to get a job," local radio talk show host and black Mississippi Tea Party supporter Kim Wade told the Jackson Free Press. "They're being employed by white people. And after they get their amnesty and their voting privileges, they're going to vote for their people, just like blacks did and whites did and everybody else, and you'll see the Hispanics siding with the white majority to provide the damn jobs, and blacks will be out looking crazy, talking about 'how come we don't have any jobs.' Well, that's because you gave your damn positions to the Hispanics."
Wade said immigrants would not be able to keep Democrats in office unless they can vote.
"In other words, get a conditional citizenship that doesn't include the right to vote if it's all about compassion and not all about political gamesmanship, where they can get their people in power who will vote for Democrats until perpetuity," Wade said.
Nsombi Lambright, executive director of the Mississippi ACLU said her organization disagrees with Wade's proposal for second-class citizenship.
"The ACLU believes that being a full citizen of the United States means having voting privileges and all of those rights and privileges that go along with being a citizen of this country," Lambright said.
The Mississippi Federation for Immigration Reform and Enforcement and members of the Mississippi Tea Party are hosting tonight's meeting, which is at the Madison Cultural Center at 6:30 p.m. Other speakers, according to the event newsletter, include Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant, Madison Mayor Mary Hawkins-Butler, state Rep. Becky Currie, R-Brookhaven, and Bill Marcy, candidate for U.S. representative of Mississippi's Second Congressional District.
"We're going to propose the Arizona law, pretty much word for word, except for the conditions that would be dictated by the uniqueness of our border compared to Arizona's," Wade said.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton imposed a partial injunction on Arizona law SB 1070, restricting members of Arizona law enforcement from pulling over motorists and questioning their citizenship status. Bolton's decision also strikes down the section of law that requires Arizona immigrants to carry immigration registration papers at all times. In Arizona, it is also illegal for an undocumented worker to seek or perform work without documentation.
Wade said that by imposing the partial injunction, Bolton "engaged in judicial activism," and said he was confident the injunction would be "overturned at some point."
Wade attacked The Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance's attempt to link the immigrant amnesty movement with the Civil Rights Movement, arguing that black Americans are "going to get the short end of the stick."
Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance Executive Director Bill Chandler said that immigrant issues have always been tied to the Civil Rights Movement. He argued that immigrants also could not use "whites only" water fountains prior to the late 1960s, and that many aspects of the landmark court decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which made public school racial segregation illegal, arose from immigrant inequality in the public school system.
Chandler also blasted Wade's assertions that blacks would lose jobs as a result of immigration.
"The fact of the matter is that when immigrants, both documented and undocumented, come into an area they have the effect of increasing jobs, because immigrants produce wealth that procures other jobs," Chandler said.
Several reports back Chandler's assertion, including two from 2006, "The Economic Impact of the Hispanic Population on the State of North Carolina" and "Undocumented Immigrants in Texas: A Financial Analysis of the Impact to the State Budget and Economy," which find that documented and undocumented immigrant populations add considerable revenue to the North Carolina and Texas economies.
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