Immigration Politics as Madness - Florida: Arizona-style law in Florida would be crazy - Opinion

A nationally syndicated Florida columnist talks about the insanity of proposed anti-immigration legislation in his state. 

In My Opinion: Arizona-style law in Florida would be crazy - Andres Oppenheimer - MiamiHerald.com: "Oh my God! Just when many of us thought that Arizona’s anti-immigration law was a legal aberration drifting into oblivion, the Florida Legislature is considering a similar law that could affect all Hispanics in one of the states most dependent on Latin American tourism, trade and real estate investments....

A recently-released study by the Florida Chamber of Commerce Foundation says that while the state’s undocumented immigrants’ costs related to prisons and education can be estimated at $659 million a year, immigrant workers in Florida contribute an average of $4.5 billion in tax revenues a year. What’s more, total spending of overseas visitors to Florida exceeds $7 billion a year, and foreign direct investment to Florida exceeds $34 billion, the study says.

“If people of foreign birth perceive Florida to be a hostile environment to them, it is natural that they would visit less and invest less,” Florida Chamber of Commerce Foundation president Dale Brill told me. “Those negative perceptions could have a negative impact on our economy.”

My opinion: I agree. When Arizona passed its little-disguised anti-Hispanic immigration law, several U.S. cities, foreign states and business organizations boycotted that state, in addition of casting it around the world as a symbol of racial intolerance. Arizona lost $141 million in cancelled meetings and tourism income just in the first four months after the bill’s passage, according to press reports.

If that was a dumb legislation in Arizona, it would be outright insane in Florida, which lives of foreign tourism, trade and investments. I’m usually pretty good at writing with a cool head, but this time I can only ask: are they nuts?