Fucking hell.
A Georgia parolee works the fields.
In the wake of Georgia’s Arizona-esque immigration bill, thousands of immigrants who were content to do the work that — as Stephen Colbert pointed out months ago — few if any Americans want to do, have fled the state, leaving crops to rot in the fields. Needless to say, somebody has got to pick these crops, and who better than the O.G. Croppickers — black folks!
Georgia, which passed an Arizona-style immigration bill in April that is due to take effect next month, has seen thousands of undocumented immigrants flee the state. A state survey released last week found 11,080 vacant positions on state farms that needed to be filled to avoid losing crops.
At the same time as the survey’s release, Deal, a first-term Republican, announced a program to link the state’s 100,000 probationers with farmers looking to fill positions, the vast majority of which pay less than $15 per hour.
The AP reported the first group of probationers began working last week at an Americus farm owned by Dick Minor, the president of the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association.
I read about this over at The Reid Report — I urge you to head over there and read her take on this fuckery — and, needless to say, I’m stunned and sick to my stomach.
Here’s the AP:
