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NY Times June 3, 2011
In Alabama, a Harsh Bill for Residents Here Illegally
By JULIA PRESTON
Alabama has passed a sweeping bill to crack down on illegal immigrants
that both supporters and opponents call the toughest of its kind in the
country, going well beyond a law Arizona passed last year that caused a
furor there.
The measure was passed by large margins in the Alabama Senate and the
House, both Republican-controlled, in votes on Thursday. Governor Robert
Bentley, a Republican, is expected to sign the bill into law.
“Alabama is now the new No. 1 state for immigration enforcement,” said
Kris Kobach, a constitutional lawyer who is secretary of state in
Kansas. He has helped write many state bills to curtail illegal
immigration, including Alabama’s.
“This bill invites discrimination into every aspect of the lives of
people in Alabama,” said Cecillia Wang, director of the immigrants’
rights project of the American Civil Liberties Union, which has brought
legal challenges against several state immigration-control laws. Calling
Alabama’s bill “outrageous and blatantly unconstitutional,” Ms. Wang
said, “We will take action if the governor signs it.”
The Alabama bill includes a provision similar to one that stirred
controversy in Arizona, authorizing state and local police officers to
ask about the immigration status of anyone they stop based on a
“reasonable suspicion” the person is an illegal immigrant. Federal
courts have suspended most of that Arizona law.
Alabama’s bill goes beyond Arizona’s. It bars illegal immigrants from
enrolling in any public college after high school. It obliges public
schools to determine the immigration status of all students, requiring
parents of foreign-born students to report the immigration status of
their children.
The bill requires Alabama’s public schools to publish figures on the
number of immigrants — both legal and illegal — who are enrolled and on
any costs associated with the education of illegal immigrant children.
The bill, known as H.B. 56, also makes it a crime to knowingly rent
housing to an illegal immigrant. It bars businesses from taking tax
deductions on wages paid to unauthorized immigrants.
“This is a jobs-creation bill for Americans,” said Representative Micky
Hammon, a Republican who was a chief sponsor of the bill. “We really
want to prevent illegal immigrants from coming to Alabama and to prevent
those who are here from putting down roots,” he said.
The Alabama bill comes at the end of a legislative season when many
states wrestled with immigration crackdown proposals. Measures focusing
only on enforcement failed in 16 states, according to a tally by the
National Immigration Forum in Washington, a group opposing such laws.
In May, Georgia adopted a tough enforcement law, which civil rights
groups filed a lawsuit on Thursday seeking to stop. Proponents of state
immigration enforcement laws won a major victory last week when the
Supreme Court upheld a 2007 law in Arizona imposing penalties on
employers who hire illegal immigrants.
Alabama’s law includes some provisions similar to the Arizona statute
that courts rejected as incursions on legal terrain reserved for the
federal government. But Michael Hethmon, general counsel of the
Immigration Reform Law Institute in Washington, said the Alabama bill
was a compendium of measures against illegal immigrants that his group
had tested in other states. Mr. Hethmon’s group is the legal arm of the
Federation for American Immigration Reform, which seeks to reduce
immigration.
The bill requires all Alabama employers to use a federal system,
E-Verify, to confirm the legal status of all workers. The measure also
makes it a state crime for an immigrant to fail to carry a document
proving legal status, and makes it a crime for anyone to transport an
illegal immigrant.
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