Photo by Maurice Michael/Flickr (Creative Commons)
The states with two of the nation’s most restrictive new anti-illegal immigration laws also happen to be the two states that saw the biggest jump in their Latino population during the last decade.
Alabama saw a 145 percent increase in its Latino population between 2000 an 2010, according to census data, the second highest Latino growth rate in the nation. Its HB 56 immigration law, which remains partially blocked but has still caused a rash of school absences and a labor crisis in the fields as Latino workers flee the state, contains more restrictive provisions than Arizona’s controversial SB 1070 on which it is modeled.
South Carolina, just sued by the federal government over its new SB 1070-inspired law allowing police to check for immigration status, saw the nation’s biggest percent jump in Latino population growth: 148 percent. And Georgia, where an anti-illegal immigration law known as HB 87 was partially blocked in court over the summer but still caused a labor crisis, is not far behind. That state saw its Latino population grow 96 percent between 2000 and 2010.
The growth didn’t happen all at once. All of these southern states, along with others, saw very sharp increases in Latino settlement during the previous decade as well. Many of the newcomers were foreign-born immigrants, driven there by jobs and prospects that were becoming scarcer in the more crowded, expensive western states. The ensuing culture clash and racial tensions, percolating since Latinos began settling in the South in large numbers, is more than partly behind these far-from-the border states going the way of Arizona.
