I'm going to again depart from the tech-focused nature of this blog to comment on an issue that was brought to my attention, on Tuesday, January 28th. Justin Keen, a Mississippi State representative introduced House Bill 1484, "AN ACT TO CREATE THE MISSISSIPPI ILLEGAL ALIEN CERTIFIED BOUNTY HUNTER PROGRAM...", on January 22nd, of this year. Here is an excerpt from the text of the proposed bill:
(2) A person commits the offense of trespass by an illegal alien if such person: (a) Is an illegal alien; (b) Knowingly enters this state and remains in this state; and (c) Is physically present in this state at the time a licensed bounty hunter or a peace officer apprehends such person.
(3) (a) The offense of trespass by an illegal alien under this section is a felony for which the authorized term of imprisonment is life imprisonment without eligibility for probation, parole, conditional release, or release except by act of the Governor or the natural death of such person.
On the surface, this might seem like a simple attempt to assist police
and immigration services in locating, detaining, and deporting
unauthorized immigrants, but if you look at the history of such
proposals, and laws, a much different picture appears.
This is not only an issue in Mississippi, or even only in the United States, but is world-wide. People and families subject to strife, famine, intolerance or abuse have often tried to migrate to a different place, where conditions might be more tolerable. You can probably look at your own family history and see ancestors who have done exactly that. For example, a significant part of my own family originated in Ireland. The Irish Potato Famine, and the reaction to it by the government of the United Kingdom, drove many to abandon everything that they owned, and large parts of their own family, and to attempt to immigrate to the United States. My wife is partially Cajun in ancestry, and the forced migration of Acadians (the original name of the Cajun population) is well documented. Outside my own family, many of my generation remember the Rwanda genocide of 1994, where as many as 2 million Rwandans fled their country to save their lives. The Arab Spring of pro-democracy protests, that began in 2010, also created a migrant crisis when governments cracked down on protest, causing a massive wave of migration to Europe and elsewhere. All of these migrants fled to somewhere other than where they were born, and when they arrived, they almost universally found themselves to be unwelcome, even though the decisions to leave their homelands were anything but voluntary.
Now that we understand why people migrate, let's take a look at something closer to home, from the history of the United States: fugitive slave laws and bounties. Until the end of slavery, in the United States, slaves who fled plantations where they were forced to live, work, and die, often in miserable and inhumane conditions, were considered fugitives from the law. The US congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 which made it clear that these people were the property of their masters, and that protecting them was unlawful, and subject to penalty. In the wake of this, multiple states passed laws that paid bounties for the reporting and recapture of slaves, even in states that were ardently anti-slavery.
Last, let's take a look at the State of Mississippi, and how it profits from the labor of convicts. From Mississippi's own web site for the Mississippi State Penitentiary, you can read about the Mississippi Prison Industries Corp and the Mississippi Prison Agricultural Enterprises which provide convict labor to reduce the cost of incarceration. Mississippi also has a convict restitution system which requires people subject to court-ordered debt to work for minimal pay. You can also read about how disproportionately this system targets Black Americans. These systems directly emerged from the chain gang system that the state used to deal with its financial problems, starting after the Civil War.
With the perspective gained from reading some of the history that I have linked to in the three previous paragraphs, do you now see proposals, like Mississippi HB 1484, in a different light? Illegal aliens could be reported by citizens, who would then receive a bounty for their efforts. Once captured, these people would then be subject to life imprisonment, during which time they would likely be forced to labor for the government of Mississippi.
I cannot think of a more inhuman and evil way to treat people who are simply trying to escape the horrors of poverty, famine and violence.
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