“Florida’s wild inland region keeps secrets,” writes the photographer Samantha Appleton, who has been documenting migrant workers in the region since 2006. “It is the birthplace of the majority of America’s tomatoes (among other types of produce), and it is the lowest rung of the immigration ladder for thousands of migrant laborers from Mexico, Central America, and Haiti.” It is also, Appleton points out, where the dysfunction of America’s immigration policy lies.

As the immigration legislation introduced this month winds its way through the Senate, Appleton’s pictures bring our attention to a world mostly hidden from view:

As you drive west from the sparkling Gulf Coast of Florida, the three-lane highway, lined with Starbucks and strip malls, quickly empties, and thins into a country road thick with vegetation. Shiny rental cars disappear, and semis laden with mangoes and peppers speed past instead, passing school buses that carry a hundred laborers on their way to the fields. After an hour’s drive, the road improves slightly, and a small town suddenly appears. Homes no bigger or more sheltering than shacks dot a dusty landscape. Workers emerge from the shadows on foot or bike, carrying plastic bags—their belongings for the day.

Central Florida represents the immigration debate in its most vexing form: the scene is as old as America itself, yet should not still exist.

Here’s a look. (And read William Finnegan’s Annals of Immigration, “The Deportation Machine,” in the current issue.) http://nyr.kr/Zj2TwP

Photographs by Samantha Appleton.

“Skilled immigrants aren’t, as a group, taking jobs away from native-born workers. They’re creating them.”

James Surowiecki  explains why comprehensive immigration reform “will be a good thing for the economy, and it’s as close to a win-win policy as you’re going to find in politics”: http://nyr.kr/ZnmlWy

(Source: newyorker.com)

John Cassidy on immigration reform: http://nyr.kr/14p5xSS

On this week’s podcast, Calvin Trillin and Amelia Lester discuss what our food says about our culture.

This week in the magazine, Calvin Trillin writes about the eating pleasures to be had in Oaxaca, Mexico. Here, Trillin joins Lester and Sasha Weiss to talk about current food trends, what they look for in a restaurant, and how the Immigration Act of 1965 revolutionized eating in America. Also, Joan Acocella on why so many good novels end badly.

In this week’s issue, Ryan Lizza examines the Republican Party’s problem attracting minority voters, specifically Hispanics, through the efforts and concerns of the G.O.P. in Texas, “the largest and most important state in the Republican firmament.” Lizza talks to Ted Cruz, the Hispanic senator-elect from Texas, about the future of his party in the state, and, ultimately, the nation. “If Republicans do not do better in the Hispanic community, in a few short years Republicans will no longer be the majority party in our state,” Cruz tells Lizza. And, “in not too many years, Texas could switch from being all Republican to all Democrat. If that happens, no Republican will ever again win the White House … If Texas is bright blue, you can’t get to two-seventy electoral votes. The Republican Party would cease to exist.” 

Continue reading.

In this week’s issue, James Surowiecki writes about the importance of immigrants to America’s economy: http://nyr.kr/Q8GZmq

 For updated coverage on the Supreme Court’s decisions on immigration, imprisoned juveniles, and health-care from Jeffrey Toobin, Kelefa Sanneh, and more, visit our vertical on the Political Scene page: http://nyr.kr/MS00eP

So much for “health-care Monday,” which had Washington and the media world in a rare tizzy.  Shortly after ten o’clock this morning, John Roberts and his colleagues handed down a bunch of rulings, some of them significant, such as one that struck down part of the Arizona immigration law, but none of them pertaining to the Affordable Health Care for America Act, a.k.a. Obamacare.  The justices, like producers of a Hollywood soap opera, were keeping their best plot twist for the end. 

John Cassidy on how the Supreme Court gave hope to both sides on health care: http://nyr.kr/MTu2LH

Alex Koppelman breaks down the Supreme Court’s ruling today on immigration in Arizona: http://nyr.kr/MQitsc