Past is prologue: Immigrant crackdowns lead to labor shortages

Past is prologue: Immigrant crackdowns lead to labor shortages


For insight into how President Donald Trump‘s focus on expediting the removal of illegal immigrants may eventually play out in terms of the U.S. economy, you could do worse than look at the experiences of Florida and Alabama.

In recent years, the neighboring southeast states have passed aggressive laws ostensibly aimed at employers not hiring undocumented immigrants. These laws include fines for hiring them, said Hector Quiroga, a Spokane Valley, Washington-based immigration attorney at Quiroga Law Office.

Alabama was the first Gulf Coast state to do so.

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In 2011, the state legislature and governor enacted HB 56, which, among other things, sanctions employers for hiring undocumented workers. The law also requires employers to use what Quiroga described as the “problematic” federal E-Verify employment screening system, which

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