Well done, Arizona. With your new employer-sanctions law, which threatens to suspend–or revoke–the business licenses of employers who knowing hire illegal immigrants, you’ve made Mexico a pleasanter alternative to America. Right on.

From CNN:

State Rep. Russell Pearce of Mesa, the author of the employer sanctions law, said his intent was to drive illegal immigrants out of Arizona.

“I’m hoping they will self-deport,” Pearce said. “They broke the law. They’re criminals.”

[…]

When immigrants don’t have jobs, they don’t stick around, said Dawn McLaren, a research economist at Arizona State University who specializes in illegal immigration. She said the flagging economy, particularly in the construction industry, also is contributing to an immigrant exodus.

“As the jobs dwindle and the environment becomes more unpleasant in more ways than one, you then decide what to do, and perhaps leaving looks like a good idea,” she said. “And certainly that creates a problem, because as people leave, they take the jobs they created with them.”

One such immigrant in the story is Martin Herrera, a masonry worker who lives in Camp Verde, AZ:

“I don’t want to live here because of the new law and the oppressive environment,” he said. “I’ll be better in my country.”

He called the employer-sanctions law “absurd.”

“Everybody here, legally or illegally, we are part of a motor that makes this country run,” Herrera said. “Once we leave, the motor is going to start to slow down.”

Now for the jaw-dropper:

[Rep.] Pearce disagreed that the Arizona economy will suffer after illegal immigrants leave, saying there will be less crime, lower taxes, less congestion, smaller classroom sizes and shorter lines in emergency rooms.

“We have a free market. It’ll adjust,” he said. “Americans will be much better off.”

Yes, of course, a free market! Where the state can revoke your business license, where labor supply and labor demand never meet, and where, come spring, some rich folk are gonna be mighty peeved at the cost of landscaping. Frrrreeedom!

Um, I’d sort of rather have Martin Herrara as my state representative. He seems to have a much better grasp of the fundamentals of economics; but I find that people who actually work for a living often do.

Hat tip (or thumbed nose, I guess) to RedState, where my favorite comment so far is this one:

The millions of Americans who fought the McCain-Kennedy amnesty were right as well.

We were called racist’s, nativist’s etc. but we didn’t care we fought hard and stopped the Congress and the President.

The beauty of that win was that the state’s could than do what was right and not be usurped by the government.

Freedom of Religion not Freedom from Religion

[sic] all over. Racist’s what? Nativist’s what? State’s what? Racist’s handbags? Nativist’s Trapper Keepers? State’s ice cream cones?

I’m dying to know what all the unidentified possessed nouns in that sentence are.

Filed under: The Dismal Science, Profiles in Governance, The Homeland