"Stupid Is as Stupid Does" - Forrest Gump.

In an effort to create jobs for legal residents by driving out undocumented workers and their families, and save up to $280 million spent by the state each year on health and education services for the undocumented, Alabama introduced its draconian anti-illegal-immigrant laws in June 2011.

According to research done by the University of Alabama and published in the Chicago Tribune on 1 February 2012, this legislation has had a less-than-desirable result.

And as stupidity goes, this must be the most successful piece of legislation in history. Here's Alabama's score-card :
1. It has cost the state $10.8 billion.
2. 80,000 jobs have been vacated by undocumented immigrants and remain unfilled by unemployed Americans.
3. $264.5 million in lost state sales and income taxes.
4. $93.1 million in lost city and county sales taxes.
5. $9 million has already been spent on litigation to defend the new law.

Now, while an investment of $280 million to get a return of $10.8 billion would be a great idea, is it only Alabama that would spend $10.8 billion to save $280 million??? Or are there other states in the Union lining up to compete for some Kafkaesque Darwin Award?

"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within. " -- Ariel Durant

"If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." - Abraham Lincoln