Drafters of Alabama’s immigration law and the states attorney general claim that while the law is intended to drive immigrants from the state, it is not meant to stop children from going to school. With reports that crops in Alabama are rotting on the vine, and the state failing to get even criminals to pick the crops, comedian Stephen Colbert weighs in. Also concerning crops rotting on the vines, a New York Times editorial explores the complex issues of labor shortages and harsh anti-immigration laws through the prism of Congressional legislation designed to provide farmers with more worker visas. Finally New facts regarding the Fast and Furious program reveal that President Bush’s Operation Gunrunner did not work with Mexico’s government, as had been previously reported.

New York Times – Critics See Chilling Effect of Alabama Immigration Law by Cambell Robertson 10/27/2011    “No child will be denied an education based on unlawful status,” the state attorney general, Luther Strange, argued in a court filing. Meanwhile a circuit judge has struck down another provision of the law.

Colbert on Alabama: With reports that crops in Alabama are rotting on the vine, and the state failing to get even criminals to pick the crops, comedian Stephen Colbert weighs in. You can watch the video here, and be sure to read this report, referenced in Colbert’s skit, on Georgia’s own crop problem as a result of their own home grown anti-immigrant law.

New York Times – Editorial – So Much For the Nativists  10/26/2011 A well-designed agricultural guest worker program is not a bad idea. Even when unemployment is above 9 percent, Americans don’t want to stoop in the fields anymore.

Arizona Daily Star – No Evidence of Mexico’s Cooperation with ATF in Tucson  For context on this developing story please see here, here and here. What a growing body of evidence shows is that in an effort to track guns from the U.S. into Mexico it became common practice to float guns across the border. Which would point to no irregularity in the practice of the Fast and Furious program.