Immigration Battles in the South

The South was one by a war of attrition, with General William Tecumseh Sherman marching to the Sea, pillaging and purging everything in sight. Trashing and destroying homes, personal belongings, and setting slaves free, the Union Army was an invidious invading force that stopped state power.

Another invasion is inspiring state power to rise again, except this time the Southern states are not just raising their arms and voices against an encroaching federal government doing too much to threaten their way of life; instead, Deep Cotton states like Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia are mounting legal enforcements within their borders against the growing invasion of illegal immigration, which has swept prominently through the South. The individuals who have skirted federal law, avoiding naturalization and fines, are undermining the rule of law in a section of the country where conservative respect for the will of the people, both born and naturalized, still commands respect. Southern hospitality has been pushed to a heinous extreme, one which state legislatures wish to curb in the best interests of the taxpayers and border security.

A Do-Nothing Congress is welcome in fiscal and domestic matters, but regarding border and national security, there is no excuse for a federal government which not only refuses to enforce the immigration laws on the books, but also sues the several states in court for taking up the responsibility long abandoned by Washington.

Fed up with the Federal Government, Alabama legislators conclusively argue that their immigration enforcement has fostered a significant decline in unemployment. Individuals whom many elite had decried would never take agricultural work, are lining up in droves to take jobs which have been released by fleeing illegal immigrants.

Unlike some of the ideology which pushed state legislatures to secede in the 1860's, the Deep South is not punishing immigrants per se, nor are their instituting racial profiling as a means of maintaining "white supremacy." State supremacy is the expressed goal, a reasonable expectation protected by the 9th and 10th Amendments of the United States Constitution. Protecting the well-being of individuals, both illegally and legally present in the country, has also motivated the legislation in these states, in addition to Utah and Indiana. To become a citizen is a privilege containing enforced rights, none of which remain for those who insist on living in the shadows, abused by unscrupulous business, unprotected by the rule of law, and unaccountable to state coffers.

Unlike the March to the Sea, the residents of the several states throughout the Deep South are taking the right and reasonable stand to stop the wave of illegal immigration overwhelming their jurisdictions. They should also be commended, like their sesquicentennial ancestors, for standing up to the federal government, an agent of authority which does not respect the obligations outlined in the Constitution regarding state sovereignty and border protection.