Not-So-Sweet Home Alabama
What People Are Saying About the State’s New Immigration Law
A collection of quotes from CAP's Immigration team gives a picture of what's going on in the state after passage of an extreme immigration law in June whose worst parts were recently upheld.
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Alabama has reawakened the ghosts of Bull Connor and George Wallace by enacting the most extreme anti-immigrant legislation in the nation (H.B. 56), igniting a civil rights, humanitarian, and moral crisis.
Below are voices and examples of the fallout from H.B. 56’s implementation.
On October 14, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on the request for an emergency stay of the controversial H.B. 56 anti-immigrant law. The court’s ruling takes a partial step in ameliorating the harm of the ill-conceived Alabama immigration law by enjoining the provisions that essentially made it a crime to be undocumented and the provision that required schools to ask their students for immigration papers.
The court left intact much of the law, however, including the provision that requires police to verify the immigration status of people they stop and “suspect” are here illegally. The court upheld the provision making it a felony for undocumented immigrants to contract with any governmental entity. Among other things, that means it is a felony for undocumented immigrants to get running water in their house or apartment. The court also allowed the provision to remain that prevents undocumented immigrants from enforcing virtually all contracts, essentially permitting the wholesale exploitation of undocumented individuals. In an appeal filed with the Atlanta-based appeals court on November 14, the Department of Justice further argued that “The Constitution leaves no room for such a state immigration-enforcement scheme.”
The clearly unconstitutional “no contracts” provision is already beginning to come apart at the seams. On October 24, Alabama Circuit Judge Scott Vowell issued an opinion that suggested that the provision may violate the Alabama state constitution. The state constitution requires that no law impairs “the obligation of contracts by destroying or impairing the remedy for their enforcement.” As it turns out, state officials will not only have to defend their immigration law in federal court, but also at home.
As examples of these harsh effects are starting to become apparent and the economic impacts of the law are beginning to add up, more and more people inside and outside of Alabama are speaking up. Recognizing several “unintended consequences” of the bill, Alabama state senators are beginning to suggest amendments to H.B. 56.
Tom Perez, the assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice has visited Alabama to assess the situation. DOJ has set up a hotline (855-353-1010 or hb56@usdoj.gov) to collect reports of rights violations and has put attorneys and staff on the ground to monitor implementation of the law while the legal challenge continues. Perez and the DOJ have also requested student-enrollment data from a number of Alabama schools after receiving complaints in Alabama that suggest schools may have violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other equal rights laws.
Alabama and national leaders will gather at the historic 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on November 21 to launch the “One Family, One Alabama” campaign to oppose H.B. 56.
New voices speak up against the law
President Barack Obama:
Congresswoman Terri Sewell (D-AL-7):
Sen. Gerald Dial (R-Lineville):
“I made some mistakes in voting for the bill as it was, and I’m big enough to admit it.”
Sen. Slade Blackwell (R-Jefferson and Shelby Counties):
Sen. Billy Beasley (D-Clayton):
Mayor Sheldon Day, mayor of Thomasville, Alabama, who believes competing states are mentioning H.B. 56 to foreign companies considering possible plant sites:
“It’s bringing back old images from 40 or 50 years ago.”
Wade Henderson, head of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights:
“Alabama’s law really represents a new frontier in the struggle for civil rights.”
Jay Reed, president of the Alabama Associated Builders & Contractors:
Don Logan, retired Time Inc. CEO and owner of the Birmingham Barons:
Speaking of the Jefferson County bankruptcy and H.B. 56: “I just wish we would stop shooting ourselves in the foot so much. We don’t need any more bad publicity.”
Randy Rhodes, president of Harvest Select, which has a catfish processing plant in Uniontown, Alabama:
David Bronner, CEO of Retirement Systems of Alabama, the pension fund for employees of the State of Alabama:
James Pilgrim, owner of a mobile home park in Birmingham, Alabama:
Tyrone Belcher, sitting member of Birmingham Board of Education:
Emanuel Ford, sitting member of Birmingham Board of Education:
Janice Sawyer, 63, Alabama farmer:
Lee Fitch, watermelon farmer:
“I probably can’t find anybody else, so that would be it. … no more watermelons, not on my farm.”
Brenda Loya, AFL-CIO Media Affairs:
Wayne Flynt, historian, Auburn University:
Angel Enriquez, undocumented immigrant, escaped Alabama to Florida but visits his U.S. citizen wife and 1-year-old daughter who remain in Alabama every weekend:
Bill Bounds, manager of a mobile home park in Birmingham, Alabama:
David Smolin, an expert on constitutional law, professor of law at Cumberland School of Law, Samford University:
Vanzetta Penn McPherson, retired U.S. magistrate judge:
Birmingham News editorial board:
Andrew Rosenthal, political commentator and overseer of The New York Times editorial board:
Father Tom Ackerman, Catholic Diocese of Birmingham:
Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference:
“I do believe this law is anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-family.”
Janeth, undocumented immigrant living in Alabama:
Jessica Rodriguez, resident of Alabama whose husband is in the process of obtaining a green card:
What the law’s supporters are saying
Lindsey Lyons, mayor of Albertville:
Rep. Steve King (R-IA):
Steve King: “I don’t know why that would be too far.”
Rep. Paul Beckman (R-Prattville):
Rep. Scott Beason (R-Gardendale), former chair of the Senate Rules Committee, sponsor of H.B. 56:
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), responding to Laura Ingraham’s question of about whether he believes it’s bad for Alabama’s children to be leaving school:
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL):
Gov. Robert Bentley, governor of Alabama:
Hearing about failing Alabama farms: “Those are anecdotal stories. It’ll work itself out.”
Kris Kobach, Kansas secretary of state and architect of H.B. 56 and similar anti-immigrant laws:
“It’s self-deportation at no cost to the taxpayer. I’d say that’s a win.”
Gov. Jan Brewer, governor of Arizona:
More reactions from inside and outside Alabama
U.W. Clemon, Alabama’s first African American federal judge, succeeded by Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn as Chief Judge of the Northern Alabama U.S. District Court:
As a result of H.B. 56, in Alabama “the Hispanic man is the new Negro.”
Rev. Raphael Warnock, Ebenezer Baptist Church:
Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL):
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL):
Eric Holder, U.S. attorney general, at Fred Shuttleworth’s funeral in Alabama:
Jim McVay, spokesman for the Alabama Department of Public Health:
Claudia Pineda, owner of La Michoacana in Robertsdale, which will close in December:
Keith Smith, sweet potato farmer:
Felipe Chacon, tomato picker:
Stephen Colbert, host of “The Colbert Report”:
Bernard Simelton, president of the Alabama NAACP:
Scott Douglas III, executive director of the Greater Birmingham Ministries:
Bill Lawrence, principal of Foley Elementary in Foley, Alabama, where 24 out of 223 Latino children enrolled have left the state and where 36 more have announced they will leave soon:
Melinda Martinez, local inexperienced picker at Keith Smith’s farm who’s been on the jobs for four days:
Chad Smith, Alabama farmer who estimates he lost as much as $300,000 because he couldn’t harvest all of his tomatoes after the labor shortage precipitated by H.B. 56 hit:
Brian Cash, owner of K&B Farms, a third-generation farm in the Chandler Mountain, Alabama:
Keith Smith, Alabama potato farmer:
Samuel Addy, Ph.D., director and research economist at the Center for Business and Economic Research at the Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration at the University of Alabama:
Scott Beaulier, professor of economics at Troy University and executive director of the Sorrell College of Business’s Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy:
Roman Lovera, undocumented student afraid to go to high school:
“I was so close. One little piece of paper [H.B. 56] kept me from graduating.”
Greg Parrish, owner of Creekside Rentals, a mobile home park in Russellville, Alabama:
Jeremy Thornton, professor of economics at Samford University Brock School of Business:
“The state will be poorer because of this bill.”
Van Phillips, principal, Center Point High School, Alabama:
“I’m not INS. It’s not my job to police who’s legal, who’s illegal.”
Sally Howell, executive director of the Alabama Association of School Boards:
About the law
To reach her decision, Judge Blackburn rejected the sound legal analysis of other federal district judges and a panel of federal appellate judges, misrepresented binding Supreme Court precedent, and ignored the plain language of the Alabama statute. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals partially reversed her ruling but left intact a number of extreme measures while the legal proceedings move forward.
As a result of these rulings, the following measures, among others, are now in effect in Alabama:
- Police officers must ask anyone they stop who they think might be undocumented to prove their immigration status on the spot.
- It is a felony for an undocumented immigrant to enter in to a contract with any state or local governmental entity.
- Most contracts entered in to with an undocumented immigrant are null and void including child support, loans, rentals, and so forth.
- Some undocumented immigrants must be indefinitely detained.
The consequences of these measures include:
- Children are scared to go to school for fear their parents will be taken away from them.
- Parents are afraid to go to work.
- Health officials are worried that immigrants fearing arrest and deportation have stopped seeking medical care increasing the risk of illness.
- Others are burrowing deeper, fearful of contact with authorities that might result in arrest, detention, and deportation.
- There is now an American state where all of us must carry our papers at all times or risk being hauled off by the police in handcuffs in front of our kids.
- Latinos—even if they are U.S. citizens—are now officially “suspect” in Alabama.
- Good cops are forced to ask for papers of anyone who they “reasonably suspect” of being undocumented even though they know it will undermine their ability to fight crime.
- Bad cops will seek out and relish stopping people and asking for papers.
- Latinos and others whose families have been in the United States for generations will get asked to produce their papers frequently.
- Latino immigrants will see police not as crime fighters but as immigration agents.
- It is a felony for an undocumented immigrant to get running water hooked up in her house.
- Alabama has given state-sanctioned license to break contracts with and exploit undocumented individuals so employers can refuse to pay workers and landlords can kick tenants out of their apartments without notice.
- The state’s agricultural industry could be decimated as immigrant workers stop showing up.
- Alabama’s reputation as a state welcoming to foreign investment is going to suffer.
- Alabama’s reputation of opposing civil rights to African Americans is compounded with a reputation for violating Latinos’ civil rights.
- Questions about “ethnic cleansing” will now be asked about a U.S. state.
Decent Americans must do all we can to help the immigrant community under siege in Alabama as well as the brave civil rights community, and religious groups who are on the front lines.
We must ask ourselves and challenge our leaders: Is this the kind of America we want?
Additional resources:
- 100 Reasons Why Alabama’s Immigration Law Is a Disaster
- The Nasty Ripple Effects of Alabama’s Immigration Law
- See ThinkProgress daily posts
- CAP on Federal District Judge Ruling to Uphold Alabama’s “Papers Please” Law
- How Georgia’s Anti-Immigration Law Could Hurt the State’s (and the Nation’s) Economy
- Your State Can’t Afford It
- Stop the Conference
- Alabama Takes No Steps Forward and Two Steps Back on Immigration
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