Anti-Immigration Law Directly Affects Georgia Farms

By Linda Ripoll

As Georgia’s immigration law continues to cause concern for many illegal immigrants and their supporters, it has also had an immediate economic impact on the Georgia farming community. Thousands of undocumented farm workers have fled the state out of fear of deportation leaving farm-owners in a bind. Crops have to be harvested and these back-breaking positions were mostly filled by illegal immigrants. Very few Americans are interested in working for $.50 a barrel which factors out to be just below minimum wage for a full eight-hour work day. Farm-owners are now turning to people on probation which have yet to be proven as a reliable alternative. According a recent article on AFP.com, hiring ex-convicts are not high on farm-owners list of possibilities:

"We're going to have to train them -- that's a cost we're going to have to absorb," James told AFP.
"If they pass a drug test and they're drug free, we'll use them if we have to," she added, pointing out that many workers they used to employ "are scared to come to Georgia."
Other farmers, such as Dan King of Five Brothers Produce in Rebecca, refuse to hire people on probation despite the shortage in laborers.
"I don't need to make it easy for someone to case my place and come back and steal from me after hours," he said.
 

The Georgia Immigration law goes into effect on July 1st. With millions of dollars on the line for Georgia’s farm-owners, it will be rather interesting to see how costly the immigration law may be to the future of the Southern state’s economy.