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Alabama State Senator Scott Beason: Not In My Backyard

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scott beasonKathy McMullen is the Associate Director of Greater Birmingham Ministries and blogs at BirminghamBlues.com.  In case you missed it, this is her excellent post from last week on State Senator Scott Beason, architect of the infamous Alabama immigration law, and some Republican hypocrisy:

Yesterday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told Congress that her department will not be helping Alabama enforce its new immigration law. Which makes a lot of sense considering 1) the Department of Justice is in court trying to overturn the law and 2) the federal government has been a little busy deporting record numbers of undocumented immigrants over the past three years.

Of course, there was the usual screaming in comments advocating DEPORT THEM ALL, decrying Obama’s efforts to destroy the United States, complaining about all the communists in Washington, and fear-mongering about illegal INVADERS!!!!!!!! No consideration of what it would actually cost in taxpayer money to deport 11-12 million people.

Today, Scott Beason weighed in, and he leaves me once again shaking my head in wonder that he can even find his way to Montgomery on a regular basis:

State Sen. Scott Beason, R-Gardendale, said the law was intended to push illegal immigrants out of Alabama, not necessarily deport them from the United States, which is a function of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency that Napolitano oversees. Beason said her testimony on Capitol Hill yesterday was not a surprise and that the Alabama law was never intended to be a big referral service to ICE for deportation.

That will certainly come as a surprise to the DEPORT THEM ALL contingent.

“It takes away the attractiveness and the things that draw an illegal workforce and it’s beginning to have a reduction in the number of people coming here,” Beason said. “It was not designed to go out and arrest tremendous numbers of people. Most folks in the state illegally will self-deport and move to states that are supportive of large numbers of illegals coming to their state. We were not putting together a deportation scheme.”

“It takes away the attractiveness and the things that draw an illegal workforce…” Yeah, like farming and construction. Because no one here in Alabama is in desperate need of home rebuilding or repair. And we can ship in all our produce from Florida or California or (God forbid) Mexico. Just as long as we can ship our immigrant “problem” to other states. Brilliant.