Don’t forget to contact your Mississippi state representatives. HB-488 is an anti-immigration bill almost identical to the one recently passed in Alabama (which has had disastrous economic consequences for that state).
Here is the link to the status of HB-488 from the Mississippi state legislature’s website. And here is the text of HB-488. The bill has already been passed to the Judiciary B and Education subcommittees.
If you want to hear about how the bill has fared in Alabama, I recommend this now-classic This American Life episode: Reap What You Sow. In Alabama, farmers have lost crops, crime rates have gone up (as police forces spend time checking on individual residency/citizenship status), construction crews are short, and schools are losing funding (since their student population dropped and people have left, losing them property tax revenue). You don’t want this to happen in Mississippi, do you?
Contrary to what you may believe, “illegal” immigrants pay taxes. A lot of taxes. Don’t believe me? Here’s a chart that shows how much they pay in each state. In Mississippi alone, “illegal” immigrants pay more than $52 million in taxes. That accounts for more than 11% of the total state budget. Why? Because unlike most Americans, “illegal” immigrants can’t file for income tax refunds, so they pay the highest possible rates in payroll taxes (in contrast, about half of American qualify for full tax refunds—so they pay nothing in income taxes). Driving out “illegal” immigrants would not only cripple Mississippi’s agricultural and construction sector (as it has in Alabama), it would also mean a significant shortfall in tax revenue, which would require massive public spending cuts.
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