Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) is pleasantly plain-spoken on the subject of illegal aliens: he says he wants them to leave his state to open up jobs and improve services for the citizens.

The media is full of sob stories about lawbreakers leaving. But Rep. Brooks is not disappointed that illegals are packing up — that was the idea.

In the video below, the immigration discussion starts at around 2.30 in:

Alabama immigration law is working, Rep. Mo Brooks says, Politico, October 6, 2011

Many Hispanic students and workers have stayed home in response to Alabama’s tough new immigration law — and that’s the whole point of the measure, Rep. Mo Brooks said on Thursday.

The Alabama Republican told POLITICO in an interview that he does not consider the above-average number of absences “unintended consequences” of the law.

“Those are the intended consequences of Alabama’s legislation with respect to illegal aliens,” Brooks said. “We don’t have the money in America to keep paying for the education of everybody else’s children from around the world. We simply don’t have the financial resources to do that. Second, with respect to illegal aliens who are now leaving jobs in Alabama, that’s exactly what we want.”

U.S. District Judge Sharon Blackburn ruled on Sept. 28 that Alabama can enforce the law’s requirements for schools to verify students’ immigration status and for police to determine citizenship and status of those they stop, detain or arrest. Police are allowed to arrest anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant during a routine traffic stop, under the law. (See the full discussion in The Arena.) 

An alarming number of Hispanic students in the state failed to show up for school on Monday — over 2,000 did not attend classes, POLITICO reported. On Tuesday, there were 1,525 Hispanic students absent, and on Wednesday 1,357 did not show up for class, according to the state’s Dept. of Education public information manager Malissa Valdes. While the numbers of absent students has been shrinking, it’s still at least 15 percent above the norm.

The number of absent Hispanic students statewide has been decreasing since Alabama’s top education official said on Tuesday that kids will be accepted at school even without documents, but attendance is still down compared to before the ruling.

Brooks told POLITICO he wants a “sound immigration policy” that would permit people in the country who would be productive members of society.

“Granted, we need to have a sound immigration policy that allows people into our country who are going to produce more than they are going to consume, but the bottom line is illegal aliens consume far more of our tax resources than they generate,” he said. “They commit heinous crimes against American citizens.”

The main purpose of the law, Brooks said, is to remove illegal immigrants from the state — and the legislation’s enforcement is clearly working toward that goal.

“So these aren’t unintended consequences,” Brooks said. “We want illegal aliens out of the state of Alabama and I want illegal aliens out of the United States of America, thereby opening up 7.4 million jobs that Americans can apply for that now they can’t get.”