The Hospitality State...

I heard a piece about my native state this morning on NPR. Following the leadership of new Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant (of state auditing fame), MS has now made it a felony to work as an undocumented worker, or "illegal alien". According to one article:

"Anyone caught "shall be subject to imprisonment in the custody of the Department of Corrections for not less than one (1) year nor more than five (5) years, a fine of not less than one thousand dollars ($1000) nor more than ten thousand dollars ($10,000) or both." Anyone charged with the crime of working without papers will not be eligible for bail. The law is set to become effective for large employers on July 1."

Interesting. According to NPR Phil Bryant has overwhelming popular support. They even played a couple of sound bites in which he first tried to play the charming bumpkin on accusations of xenophobia ("...I thought that was some kind of musical instrument...") before stressing his career in law enforcement and his supreme faith in the rule of law. Honestly, I fail to see how escalating the categorization/penalty for a crime either enhances or detracts from the rule of law. The law is the law. The same logic would dictate that jay walking should be made a capital offense if we really believe in preserving and upholding the rule of law.

What he seems to be saying is that he's a born and bred Mississippian, sick and tired of illegal workers and wants to add deterrent. The great irony is that according to one such illegal worker in Gulfport (interviewed on NPR), back in the immediate aftermath of Katrina the police would personally escort these undocumented workers from the Home Depot parking lot to their daily work sites. Now the police come to run them off as a nuisance.

Mississippi, the "hospitality state".

Phil Bryant responded to this contradictory stance most articulately: "Well, I wasn't Lt. Gov. at that time [the aftermath of Katrina]."

Undocumented is undocumented, there's no getting around that. But there's nothing compassionate or hospitable about the "rule of law" in MS on this issue. I'll go so far as to call it a bigoted response. Certainly something should be done, but it is an uncreative, simple-minded and heavy-handed approach to think that "doing something" is conscionably a matter of self-serving hostility.

Mississippi, where hospitality is code for "We'll use you if we can, and if we can't, get the hell out."