The Flor-Ala editorial board is absolutely opposed to the new Alabama immigration bill. And how couldn’t we be? The bill may have started with good intentions by legislators, but what it really comes down to is state-sponsored racism.

Not only is this bill an embarrassment to the state, only enforcing preconceived notions of many other Americans that Alabama is backwards and racist, it is bad for it economically.

Lawmakers created the bill with the childish notion that all the evil illegals would be forced out of their jobs so “real” Americans can take the jobs to support their families.

But the reality is few Americans want the backbreaking work associated with agricultural jobs typically held by illegal immigrants. Many Alabama farmers have complained that they won’t be able to maintain crews large enough to harvest their crops now that illegals are afraid to show up for work.

The outcry from the farmers was serious enough to cause Gov. Robert Bentley to start a statewide program to help farmers find Americans interested in filling the void left by the new immigration law. As of Oct. 20, 260 people had signed up (across the entire state) and about 30 replaced the hundreds of immigrant workers who fled the state or refuse to show up for work in protest or fear or both.

The bill is bad for Alabama’s economy, and it does nothing to solve the national economic problems associated with illegal immigration. Immigrants have simply fled to other states to take jobs where they can feel safe and not oppressed by their governments and their neighbors.

But one of the most absurd parts of the bill is Gov. Bentley’s reaction after the bill caught its share of much deserved flak. He said he won’t be the face of the immigration bill, even though he was at the forefront of the bill when he signed it earlier this summer. You can’t pick and choose what you’re remembered for.

And though The Flor-Ala editorial board is wholly for the separation of church and state, it is still surprising that, in the buckle of the Bible Belt, so many Christians support a bill that completely opposes the Christian Bible. Exodus 22:21 says, “Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt.”

Thankfully, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently sided with the Obama administration, temporarily blocking public schools from checking the immigration status of students and their parents and blocking police from charging immigrants unable to prove their citizenship-some of the more fascist-state features of the bill.

The final decision on the bill won’t arrive for a few months, but The Flor-Ala editorial board hopes that the courts will make the right decision and lift this “black cloud” from the Alabama skyline.

The opinions expressed are the collective ideas of The Flor-Ala editorial board.