As a young civil rights attorney, I began my career litigating in Alabama on education and housing issues. After losing a few airtight discrimination cases because juries felt that while my clients had been wronged the unlawful acts were just the way things were done, I was done with Alabama. I vowed to never go back. A couple of weeks ago, I broke my promise because of the civil rights crisis that exists in the aftermath of the passage of HB56, the most stringent anti-immigrant law in the country. I travelled to Birmingham as a part of a delegation of women leaders with We Belong Together, a national alliance calling for an end to anti-immigrant legislation. We were there to bear witness to the impact of the Alabama law.
In a few weeks, the Supreme Court will review Arizona's anti-immigrant law, SB1070, and perhaps signal the fate of the Alabama law. Alabama's HB56 is SB1070 2.0, going farther in its reach and impact on every aspect of the daily lives of immigrants. Like Arizona, the Alabama law legalizes racial profiling by allowing police to demand "papers" showing immigration status of people appearing to be immigrants. Its reach was extended by requiring proof of citizenship for business transactions such as establishing utility and government services, including access to the courts. Until a court decision halting the practice, the state also required that record of public school students' immigration status and that of their parents be collected. The law also made assisting and contracting with undocumented immigrants illegal. Whether the law is unconstitutional may soon be ascertained but in the meanwhile it is wreaking havoc on families, communities and the economy.
It is clear that the Alabama law is accomplishing its goal of, as one of its sponsors stated, making life "unbearable" for immigrants. It is also clear that it has created a civil and human rights crisis that should not be ignored. The We Belong Together delegation had the opportunity to meet with immigrant mothers and youth who are living in post-HB56 Alabama. They live in fear every day -- fear of arrest, deportation, separation from family, and loss of any means of providing for their families. For example, one mother explained that because she and her husband are undocumented, they do not go out together. They leave their home one-at-a-time for fear that if the they were out together they would both be "grabbed up" by the police and deported, leaving their children (some of whom are U.S. citizens) parentless. This same mother explained that when HB56 passed, she pulled her children out of all after-school activities. They now stay at home with nothing to do out of fear of deportation. Another woman recounted overcoming a relationship with an abusive husband with the help of a court system that she can no longer access due to the new law. A 14-year-old girl said, "when HB56 passed, Iost my dreams. It's a nightmare now." Six months ago, Jocelyn's mother left Alabama with her three-year-old sister; she hasn't seen them since. Jocelyn lives with an uncle who is now her guardian. She said, "I'm not doing well in school because I don't have my mom anymore. She's not here to wake me up in the morning." HB56 has lead to separation of many families because parents choose not to have their children living "on-the-run." These families have given neighbors, friends and employers powers of attorney to transact business on their behalf, as well as custody of their children.
Additionally, the law has given law enforcement the power to racially profile. One woman told the delegation that police sit at the entrance of the trailer park she lives in every day watching as residents come and go. The police target immigrants for stops and have cars impounded repeatedly for various minor violations. The police state and harassment by the police makes living there extremely uncomfortable for immigrants, pushing them further into the shadows of our society.
I am glad I broke my vow. It was important for me to go to Alabama to understand how HB56 is playing out. The stories I heard brought back memories of my days in Alabama in the 1990s. Alabama was the first place I was called a Yankee, and that was by the security officers at the federal court house. I knew then that there were some in Alabama who didn't like outsiders. But I also know that Alabama has such great promise. The state was the stage for some of the most hard-fought struggles and most cherished wins of the civil rights movement. It was there in Birmingham that four little girls were killed in a church because of hate and young people were hosed, beaten and arrested as they pushed for civil rights. In Selma, those marching for voting rights were beaten on what became known as Bloody Sunday. It was also the place where Jim Crow took its largest blows. It is a state that has shown tremendous progress in mending its sordid past. But HB56 has pushed Alabama back into the dark ages.
We cannot fix our national immigration system through state-hate laws that vilify and criminalize hard-working people seeking a better life for their families. There is no moral compass in self-deportation laws that tear families apart and legalize discrimination. The conservatives' war of attrition on immigrants is out-of-line with American values of liberty, freedom, justice and equality. Laws and practices that suck all dignity from people, usurp all civil and human rights, while causing people to live in fear of not only hate-mongers but also government, is a history Alabama should not repeat. Alabama and the nation can do better.
Follow Judith Browne Dianis on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@jbrownedianis
Alex Nowrasteh: Economic Judgment on Arizona's Immigration Law
Eliseo Medina: The U.S. Supreme Court Will Decide And So Will We
According to the Pew Center the jobs where Illegal Immigrant Workers are most prevalent in the USA are Farming, Construction, Transportation and Material Moving, Food Service, and Cleaning. That is also where unemployment is highest for us Americans. By their very definition these jobs are and always will be American Jobs. NONE can be outsourced. Try out-sourcing the construction of buildings to China. Buildings are really hard to air or ocean ship once they are built. Try harvesting American crops, mining American ore, preparing American food, cleaning American buildings, or moving goods in America with workers living in China or India or even Mexico. It cannot be done.
From 1979 when there were few Illegal Immigrants in the USA to pre-Recession 2006 when there were many, real wages for Construction Workers fell 11%, for Material Moving Workers real pay fell 13%, Meat Worker pay has fallen 22%, and Farm Labor Workers now earn less than Parking Lot Attendants. Why no tears for these impoverished Americans? Why no campaign to end this injustice?
In fact, there is no difference between some companies hiring Illegal Aliens and some companies dumping pollutants and some companies cheating on their taxes. Dumping pollutants saves a company some money but hurts their neighbors. Cheating on taxes saves a company some money but hurts other taxpayers. Hiring Illegal Aliens saves a company some money but hurts American Workers.
It is people who shield Illegal Aliens from the enforcement of our law, whether they are the companies that hire them or the community activist that sabotages the enforcement of our law, effectively shielding this exploitation, that are the problem. Not the unknowing customer who buys the product.
How come these poor Americans rate lower on the "crisis" scale compared to people living in the USA illegally? How do we think those poor rejected Americans must feel seeing people who illegally took jobs they could have had being protected by groups that claim to care about the disadvantaged? How do we think they must feel as they see symbols of their fight for equality co-opted and used to protect the continued breaking of our law against working illegally in the USA? Work they could be doing but for the consistent efforts to sabotage enforcement of our Federal Immigration Law.
Does this Author realize that this opinion piece highlights the disingenuousness of those who support people living in the USA illegally? The use of the term "anti-immigrant" instead of "anti-illegal immigrant" or the more correct "pro-enforcement of our immigration law" reflects a very unfortunate agenda. If one can create enough unreasoned fear among Legal Immigrants, maybe they too will help shield those who break our immigration law. Claiming to fight fear by creating fear is ridiculous.
Time is running out for CIR. By the end of next year, CIR will be dead because 2014 is an election year and the immigrants will again be told by the Dems that "we are SO committed to CIR, but now is not a good time". After the 2014 midterms, Obama will be a lame duck. EIGHT LOST YEARS FOR CIR UNDER OBAMA IS A DISTINCT POSSIBILITY.
What you explain is, that the political will, and the position of the majority, want immigration laws enforced.
These people are not citizens, they are invaders. We actually treat them extraordinarily leniently. None of them get shot, tortured, enslaved, flogged, thrown into dungeon-like prisons etc. etc. as happens in some other parts of the world. The worst that happens to these people is deportation to their homeland. Many if not most are being released back onto our streets by the Obama administration
This is hate?
As to your bogus deportation assertion, Bush more than tripled the rate of deportations during his 8 years. In Bush's first year, 2001, slightly less than 120,000 were deported. In 2008, the Bush administration deported 369,221 aliens. In 2009, Obama deported 387,790. In 2010, 392,862 were deported. The 2011 number was 396,906. So in reality, Obama has increased deportations by about 10% over Bush's last year and NO, he hasn't deported more people in three years than Bush did in 8, and he hasn't deported significantly more per year than Bush was at the end of his term.
The reason why illegal aliens are here is because they are too lazy to change their country for the better.
"Latinos are catching the hell that can no longer be loaded on the "negras". Latinos are also pitching racism to people darker than they are, then come here and play the victim.
The black descendants of slaves in Mexico struggle against entrenched racism.
http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/places/alexis-okeowo/black-mexicans
So what immigration law and enforcement (if any) do you support?
{one of its sponsors stated, making life "unbearable" for immigrants.}
Can you please provide that quotation?
FWIW, there were no "immigration laws" back when my nomadic ancestors roamed these lands. Whoever took the land possessed the land. Might made right.