Editorials

The whole tone of the immigration debate was set when someone in Montgomery decided to call it the Joint Interim Patriotic Immigration Commission. This begs the questions: Is the commission "patriotic"? Or, will the commission, in some way or other, divide immigration into "patriotic" and "unpatriotic" and explain the difference?

And, why is it "Interim?" What comes next?

Confused?

What is not confused, however, is the emotion the issue of illegal immigration has generated, an emotion that's reached down into Alabama. The other night nearly 300 people packed a public hearing in Huntsville to tell the commission what they thought. Commissioners got an ear-full.

The audience was mostly white and mostly middle-aged; some people were upset, reports said. They were opposed to illegal immigration, opposed to businesses hiring illegal immigrants, and opposed to spending tax money to pay for health care and social services for illegal immigrants.

They, or at least some of them, also seemed opposed to hearing from anyone whose views might run contrary to their own — which is why some in the audience booed and jeered a Hispanic speaker. Some even got up to leave.

How this exchange will help the commission reach its goal of presenting the Legislature with recommendations on what to do about illegal immigration in Alabama is difficult to grasp.

Public meetings are wonderful tools; citizens need a forum to vent their frustrations. But citizens also need information, and thus far the commission has provided little.

How serious is the problem? Surely after all the time spent talking about it, the state has some reliable estimates of how many immigrants are here illegally?

What impact do illegal immigrants have on the Alabama economy? Are they taking jobs from citizens? (It is interesting to note how few African-Americans attended this meeting, yet "conventional wisdom" suggests that if there are jobs being lost, low-income black workers would suffer most.)

On the other hand, what economic contributions do illegal immigrants make in Alabama? And cultural contributions? Surely there have been studies focusing on these issues.

As for health care and social services, it's unclear to what extent illegal immigrants are costing the state. Anecdotal evidence of emergency rooms crammed with insurance-less illegal immigrants and other such stories provide fodder on which anger feeds, yet we do not have a clear understanding of the extent of the problem — or if, outside a few isolated instances, it is a problem at all.

Finally, what can the state do and what will it cost to do it? The people in that Huntsville audience needed to see the bottom line (just as the Legislature does) before a plan of action is approved.

The commission went out to confirm what it already knew — that there were a lot of people who are saying, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it any more."

What the commission has not done is investigate the problem and give citizens the facts so that they will know just what they are mad about. Armed with that information, citizens might just discover that there is not as much to be angry about as they thought there was.

Or, seeing the facts, citizens might become enlightened and force the Legislature to find solutions.