Immigration crackdown in Georgia and a cabbage patch

An "on the ground" (that is, in the cabbage patch) look at Georgia'a new anti-immigrant law and the mayor of a farming town who is one of the plaintiffs in the ACLU lawsuit against it. 

Immigration and a cabbage patch | ajc.com: "On Thursday, the ACLU and several other civil rights organizations filed the long-expected federal lawsuit challenging Georgia’s new illegal immigration law. The first objective is to block its July 1 effective date. ...

... the only elected official to join the lawsuit was Paul Bridges, the Spanish-speaking, first-term mayor of tiny Uvalda in Montgomery County. ...

His farming town has perhaps 600 souls. There is no grocery store, no doctor, no dentist. Bridges regularly ferries workers to nearby Vidalia, the onion capital of the world. ...

The primary argument for Bridges’ inclusion in the lawsuit is that he could run afoul of Georgia’s new law, which forbids “knowingly” transporting or harboring illegal immigrants. ...

Bridges has (an) emotional reason for joining the legal action. He talks of Uvalda’s many blended families — migrants who have married legal residents over the years, couples who have produced children. ...

Seasonal harvests — onions, in particular — once required a short-term labor force that quickly moved on. But over the years, farmers have expanded their winter crop production.

They’ve added turnips, collards, but especially cabbage. Winter crops create the need for a year-round labor force, and vice versa. Year-round living leads to long-term relationships, and relationships create family trees.

Entire cabbage-patch families, if you will.

“Migrants used to travel around, but now that we created this produce market, they’re staying all year,”"