Hispanic children at an Alabama school (AP Photo)
An important legal victory has given Alabama’s controversial and far-reaching immigration legislation, signed into law by Gov. Robert Bentley in June, new life.But a host of unforeseen complications has everyone from residents to local law enforcement concerned over just what the state has gotten itself into by targeting immigrants.
A federal judge in Birmingham, Alabama ruled on Wednesday that almost every provision of the state’s new immigration law, facing numerous legal challenges from activist groups and the US government, can go into effect immediately.
Provisions that were green-lighted will mandate a survey of the immigration status of schoolchildren, force police to check the immigration status of individuals at traffic stops, and ban undocumented immigrants from “transacting business” with any form of government.
Justice Department officials have reacted by continuing to press their case against the law, and are seeking to block the new regulations from going into effect while the broader case is appealed.
The U.S. Justice Department said again Friday that the federal government has exclusive authority over immigration and asked a federal judge to block Alabama’s immigration law pending an appeal.
The Justice Department is appealing U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn’s ruling Wednesday that allowed much of Alabama’s far-reaching immigration law to go into effect.
“The Department of Justice has appealed Judge Blackburn’s ruling in the Alabama immigration case to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals,” said U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance. “The U.S. will ask the 11th Circuit to enjoin all portions of the state immigration law that the federal government has challenged.”
The Justice Department asked Blackburn to delay her ruling until the Circuit Court can act. Otherwise, the law will remain in effect.
A similar request was filed by another group of plaintiffs Thursday asking Blackburn to block the law while the group appeals her decision. Blackburn gave the State of Alabama until Monday to file a response to that request.
The state of Alabama has, as of 2009, nearly 150,000 Hispanic residents. Counting undocumented immigrants, the number is likely much higher. Like many states in the South, Alabama has seen an increase in its Hispanic population in recent years as farming and other labor-intensive businesses seek a cheaper, more durable workforce.
With the state’s new immigration “reform” law granted a key legal win, every single one of those residents, legal and “illegal,” are facing a dynamic shift in their daily lives and whether or not they will choose to even remain in Alabama at all.
Signed into law in June, the state’s new immigration policy has already led to serious consequences for Hispanic residents and state and local officials alike.
Perhaps nothing speaks to the human element of the “get-tough” approach to immigration more than the fact that Hispanic children are literally “vanishing” from state schools in the wake of the court ruling upholding much of the new law. Documented and undocumented Hispanic parents are scared that the mandatory check of immigration status will lead to punishment or even deportation for their children and themselves.
The past week has seen an untold number of kids pulled out of school and forced to leave the state entirely, as local school officials plead with them to keep their kids in class, promising that the state’s mandated survey is not linked to actual enforcement of immigration law.
Hispanic students have started vanishing from Alabama public schools in the wake of a court ruling that upheld the state’s tough new law cracking down on illegal immigration.
Education officials say scores of immigrant families have withdrawn their children from classes or kept them home this week, afraid that sending the kids to school would draw attention from authorities.
There are no precise statewide numbers. But several districts with large immigrant enrollments — from small towns to large urban districts — reported a sudden exodus of children of Hispanic parents, some of whom told officials they planned to leave the state to avoid trouble with the law, which requires schools to check students’ immigration status.
The anxiety has become so intense that the superintendent in one of the state’s largest cities, Huntsville, went on a Spanish-language television show Thursday to try to calm widespread worries.
“In the case of this law, our students do not have anything to fear,” Casey Wardynski said in halting Spanish. He urged families to send students to class and explained that the state is only trying to compile statistics.
Police, he insisted, were not getting involved in schools.
Victor Palafox graduated from a high school in suburban Birmingham last year and has lived in the United States without documentation since age 6, when his parents brought him and his brother here from Mexico.
“Younger students are watching their lives taken from their hands,” said Palafox, whose family is staying put.
Story: Ala. police to enforce America’s ‘strongest’ immigration law
In Montgomery County, more than 200 Hispanic students were absent the morning after the judge’s Wednesday ruling. A handful withdrew.
In tiny Albertville, 35 students withdrew in one day. And about 20 students in Shelby County, in suburban Birmingham, either withdrew or told teachers they were leaving.
The consequences for children are the most heartbreaking impacts of the Alabama law, but more complicated is the problem facing local and state law enforcement now that the law’s provisions have been ordered to be enforced immediately.
Despite almost four months separating when Gov. Bentley signed the legislation and the legal victory that cleared the way for enforcement, ambiguities in the law’s language and a lack of specific directives from state government have led to mass confusion and varying degrees of enthusiasm about embracing actual enforcement.
Police in rural counties and small towns are unsure of what to do with suspected undocumented immigrants, or how to proceed if someone they apprehend turns out to be in the country legally. Not wanting to risk potential legal predicaments, many officials are simply ignoring the law entirely, as a BusinessWeek article details.
The police chief of a small town in the Appalachian foothills of Alabama didn’t know what to do about checking the immigration status of a Hispanic man his department recently arrested on an old warrant. So he didn’t do anything.
Alabama’s strict new immigration law, which was largely upheld Wednesday by a federal judge, requires police to jail anyone who can’t prove he or she is in the country legally.
Much of the law goes into effect immediately, but that doesn’t mean there will be mass roundups of thousands of illegal immigrants anytime soon. Across Alabama, police charged with enforcing the nation’s toughest law targeting illegal immigrants are trying to figure out how to enforce the law and pay for it.
The police chief, Chris West, and his three officers patrol Crossville, a rural town of 1,300 people that adjoins a Hispanic community of hundreds and maybe more. The nearest jail is 20 miles away. The law is complicated and they have little money for training.
“Right now we’re waiting to find out what’s in the law, and then we’re going to start enforcing it,” he said.
Also impacted is the state’s agriculture industry, a vital cog to Alabama’s economy and a sector that many feel was ignored in working out details of what is billed as the nation’s “toughest” law against illegal immigrants. With tens of thousands of immigrants working the state’s fields and processing plants, some operations may be forced out 0f business or will have to raise prices and cut jobs to deal with onerous regulations seeking to root out the undocumented.
Some have said they will “break the law” if it means they still get to “make a living.”
The law also could spell financial trouble for the state’s agriculture industry, which relies on immigrant labor to harvest and process crops. Americans generally won’t do the backbreaking work despite pay that usually is well above minimum wage.
Agriculture Commissioner John McMillan said his agency is trying to find a solution, but some crops may rot in the fields as workers leave the state rather than face arrest under the law.
“We have seen the enormous difficulties farmers, especially those in produce and poultry, have encountered as a result of the new immigration law,” he said. “The economic hardship to farmers and agribusinesses will reverberate throughout Alabama’s economy, as one-fifth of all jobs in our state come from farming.”
North Alabama grower Jeremy Calvert of Bremen said he and other farmers would prefer hiring native Alabamians for field work, but it’s just not possible. Calvert and other farmers have asked legislators to amend the law, possibly by carving out an exception for agriculture, but any changes are at least weeks away, and possibly much longer.
“It’s a real shame that a working farmer has to break the law now just to make a living,” he said.
It really is getting to the point where all the haters living in the Southern States are the ones that need to be deported. These haters who want to pull our Country back to the 50′s need to be sent to a Island were the white man is all powerful women are useless minorities and gays do not exist. We the real patriots of this country are taking too the streets because we all have had enough.LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT…
How do you say “Jim Crow” in Spanish?
So, the reason republicans don’t want immigrants to have a path to citizenship is because they might vote democratic? I wonder why they would for democrats rather than republicans? Snark…
so much for the banana republicans wanting to make government smaller with less restrictive regulations. why do they hate immigrants and science and democracy?