In their never ending zeal to attack Alabama’s immigration enforcement law, H.B. 56, the editorial page of The New York Times has inadvertently discredited one of the illegal alien advocacy movement’s favorite arguments against the law. Ever since the Alabama legislature approved H.B. 56 there have been dire predictions that the law would lead to racial profiling of Hispanics.
In yet another editorial attacking the law, “Alabama’s Shame (Cont.),” the pontificators at the Old Gray Lady zero-in on a single case that they believe illustrates the law’s overreach. A visiting Mercedes-Benz executive was pulled over by a Tuscaloosa police officer for a traffic violation. Since the German national did not have his driver’s license or other documents with him at the time, he was detained under H.B. 56 until matters were straightened out.
Okay, so we now know that H.B. 56 does not lead to racial profiling. So what does it lead to? Well, it apparently leads to more jobs for American workers and lower unemployment rates. New data show that during the first month that H.B. 56 was in place, unemployment in Alabama declined by half a percentage point, and in some areas of the state unemployment fell by a full percentage point. Critics of the law were wrong again: Americans jumped at the chance to fill jobs vacated by illegal aliens whose response to H.B. 56 was to vacate Alabama.