New laws that punish employers for hiring illegal immigrants seem to be doing what a border fence will never do.
At my place of employment, where we have legal contract workers from Mexico, we are seeing droves of people coming in looking for work. They are coming in groups of up to 10 and 12 people at a time, three or four times a day.
They have been let go from their former jobs because they cannot provide papers that are legit. We have never seen this many come to look for work, some as far away as Morristown. Of course we must tell them the same as everyone else. No legal papers, no job.
It is sad to see but I do agree this is a better and more humane way to discourage illegal immigration than a border fence across Indian lands and such.
These folks will leave Tennessee and seek work in other states where no such laws are in place, or return to their native country.
Still it is sad to see the desperation in their eyes, but we can do nothing but abide by the law.
It will be interesting to see how this affects businesses in the future when there is no cheap labor to make money off of.

Interesting opinion today in the DT. It seems literacy is a problem for local residents also. Check out the title. LOL.

Lieracy Important for Immigrants as well as Local Residents

Link...

Seriously, uneducated immigrants often have little demand of their own language, making English that much harder to learn. I see this first hand almost every day. The educated person usually does not need to leave his country to provide for his family. Our huddled masses are mostly uneducated.

That's the front page, top of the fold headline in today's Maryville Daily Times. Which is unfortunate, because there are a lot more important things going on than this manufactured wedge issue made up by GOP strategists to further divide our nation and further confuse an already misinformed electorate.

The Maryville Daily Times files this report.

According to the Daily Times, Judge young says Ms. Calixto is here illegally and that her work visa has expired. The MDT says they have a copy of her employment authorization card and that it is valid through Jan. 5, 2009.

Read the whole thing...