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.

According to figures released by the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development on Friday, Blount County's unemployment rate for November was 4.2%, slightly lower than the overall state unemployment rate of 4.9%.

Blount County unemployment was up .4% since October 2007, and up .1% year over year from November 2006.

November unemployment in the City of Maryville was 6.9%, up .5% from October 2007 and up .6% from November 2006.

November unemployment for the Knoxville Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) was 3.9%, up .4% from October 2007 and unchanged from November 2006. The Knoxville MSA includes Anderson, Blount, Knox, Loudon, and Union counties.

The total estimated workforce in the Blount County is 62,740, and the City of Maryville's workforce is 13,350.

The lowest unemployment was in Williamson County, at 3.6%, followed by Knox County at 3.7%. The highest unemployment was in Marshall County at 8.9%, followed by Pickett Co. at 8.8%.