By: Daniel Nardini
The Southern Poverty Law Center’s latest report on Alabama’s state immigration law is truly damning, and worth reading for all who wish to fight this unjust law or try to avoid it ever being copied by other states. The report, entitled, Alabama’s Shame: HB 56 and the War Against Immigrants is an indictment of not only the law itself but the lives it has shattered. Even as the Alabama state legislature is again taking a hard look at “reforming” the law they passed, the Southern Poverty Law Center has made it clear that the law should not be modified but repealed altogether. As far as the Southern Poverty Law Center is concerned, the law itself is the problem, and has quite simply allowed racists and unscrupulous people to be able to discriminate against immigrants and native-born in general and immigrants in particular.
The report gives a few examples of the hundreds of people who have brought legitimate cases to the attention of the Southern Poverty Law Center. One case involves an undocumented pregnant woman who was denied basic health care at a clinic, and a few days later had to go to the emergency room of a hospital because her condition worsened. Another case involves an undocumented family who bought a car and paid cash as a down payment. A few days later the car dealership came and took the car away because by the new law they “cannot do business with illegals.” The family never got their down payment returned to them. Yet a more extreme case involves a day laborer who had a gun pointed at her by her employer who stated that he did not have to pay her because she did not have “papers.” If people think that only undocumented people have been affected by this state immigration law, think again. Hundreds of Latinos born and raised in Alabama or other parts of the United States regularly receive taunts of “Go Back to Mexico,” and even threats in Alabama. One American-born Latino was actually denied being able to purchase items at a local store until he showed his “American” identification.
All of this speaks volumes about how Alabama’s state government has created a climate of fear, paranoia and suspicion not only against undocumented people who have committed no violent crime but against legal permanent residents and U.S. citizens whose only “crime” seems to be being Latino. The real problem with the law is that it exists at all. The immigration law is at complete variance not only with U.S. immigration law but gives carte blanche to state agencies and private citizens to commit discrimination and yes crimes against an ethnic minority knowing they will not be punished. What is truly scary is that one Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, praises the state immigration laws passed by Arizona, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, and if he is elected president will encourage more such laws like these in his administration. One thing this report makes clear, and that is we should not have such an unjust and bigoted law like this in any part of the United States, let alone allowing every state the power to pass such immigration laws like Alabama’s.
Alabama’s Shame
By: Daniel Nardini
The report gives a few examples of the hundreds of people who have brought legitimate cases to the attention of the Southern Poverty Law Center. One case involves an undocumented pregnant woman who was denied basic health care at a clinic, and a few days later had to go to the emergency room of a hospital because her condition worsened. Another case involves an undocumented family who bought a car and paid cash as a down payment. A few days later the car dealership came and took the car away because by the new law they “cannot do business with illegals.” The family never got their down payment returned to them. Yet a more extreme case involves a day laborer who had a gun pointed at her by her employer who stated that he did not have to pay her because she did not have “papers.” If people think that only undocumented people have been affected by this state immigration law, think again. Hundreds of Latinos born and raised in Alabama or other parts of the United States regularly receive taunts of “Go Back to Mexico,” and even threats in Alabama. One American-born Latino was actually denied being able to purchase items at a local store until he showed his “American” identification.
All of this speaks volumes about how Alabama’s state government has created a climate of fear, paranoia and suspicion not only against undocumented people who have committed no violent crime but against legal permanent residents and U.S. citizens whose only “crime” seems to be being Latino. The real problem with the law is that it exists at all. The immigration law is at complete variance not only with U.S. immigration law but gives carte blanche to state agencies and private citizens to commit discrimination and yes crimes against an ethnic minority knowing they will not be punished. What is truly scary is that one Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, praises the state immigration laws passed by Arizona, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, and if he is elected president will encourage more such laws like these in his administration. One thing this report makes clear, and that is we should not have such an unjust and bigoted law like this in any part of the United States, let alone allowing every state the power to pass such immigration laws like Alabama’s.