Papers, Please In Alabama, Part 3

Looks like Alabama's "Papers, Please!" immigration law is already causing serious economic damage to the state's farms, but now it's starting to cost the state foreign manufacturing plant jobs as companies look for other states to build their plants in.

And earlier this week, the business alliance in Birmingham, Alabama’s largest city, called for revisions to the law because the group worried the law was tainting Alabama’s image around the world. James T. McManus, chairman of the Alliance and CEO of the Energen Corp., said revisions “are needed to ensure that momentum remains strong in our competitive economic development efforts.”

Sheldon Day, the mayor of Thomasville, Alabama, has already seen the reality of McManus’ concerns. After Day recruited a Canadian steel company to Thomasville in July 2010, he said 25 companies have visited the town about building plants there. But he told the Wall Street Journal that since the law went into effect, at least one company turned down a visit because of the immigration law. And Golden Dragon Precise Copper Tube Group, a Chinese company that in March pledged to build a $100 million factory in Thomasville, is reconsidering its decision to build a plant in Alabama after the law went into effect.

The mounting concerns among business leaders show a turning point for the immigration law. Already, legislators have weighed in about wanting to change HB 56, and state Attorney General Luther Strange admitted that parts of the harmful law need to be scrapped. For a law that could cost the Alabama economy at least $40 million each year, it should be clear how vital it is for lawmakers in Alabama to do something about the crisis HB 56 created. 

$40 million plus a year and potentially hundreds of jobs, if not thousands if foreign manufacturing companies and auto makers pull out because of the embarrassing PR backlash.  It should have been dead obvious to Alabama lawmakers that the multinational backlash to this policy in a global economy was going to far outweigh the political "benefits" from the anti-Latino crowd in the state's midst.  Then again, they're Republicans...apparently not too smart to begin with.

While it would be devastating to the state's economy, I wonder how many international companies will leave Alabama before this law gets tossed?  If I'm an Alabama GOP lawmaker, I'm hoping the Supreme Court files this piece of work in the wastebasket pretty damn soon.