New debate expected on immigrant workers

October 30, 2011

By TED CARTER - Mississippi Business Journal


JACKSON -- With Southern governors and legislatures in a hurry to enact strict immigration enforcement measures, worries have arisen across the region that farm crops will wither in the fields without enough immigrant workers to harvest them.

That prospect has set up a potential fight in Mississippi between legislators who want to take a hard line against illegal immigrant workers and agricultural leaders who say scaring them off could cost the state the same tens of millions of dollars in crop losses endured in recent months in Georgia and Alabama.

Mississippi lawmakers failed to adopt an immigration ID law last year but will try again in January.


Opposing views

Just how much is at stake for Mississippi’s agricultural industry depends on who is doing the talking.

Ken Hood, an agricultural economist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service, said Magnolia State farmers would see some labor losses but nothing like what their counterparts in Alabama and Georgia are experiencing.

By contrast, Randy Knight of the 198,000-member Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation says the losses from a labor shortage could run into “hundreds of millions of dollarsâ€