Immigration

Beason-Hammon Immigration Law has "No Unintended Consequences"

November 9, 2011 by Left in Alabama

The negative consequences of HB56 -- lawsuits, bad publicity, racial profiling, school absences, long lines, denial of water, power and sewer service, an exodus of workers, rotting crops, business losses, a

Immigration Law Backfire

November 9, 2011 by Left in Alabama

Russell Pearce (R) who sponsored Arizona's immigration law lost his Senate seat last night in a recall election.  It wasn't even close.

The Senate President of Arizona and author of the state’s hard-line laws against illegal immigration lost a recall election seen as a bellwether on “extreme” politics.

...

“There is a deep dissatisfaction in Arizona for what is viewed as politics in the extreme,” said Earl de Berge of the Phoenix-based Behavior Research Center, a nonpartisan polling company. Pearce “symbolizes a very hard-nosed view on conservative policies.”

Earlier this year Alabama Republicans chose to follow Pearce's extreme course on immigration, passing a law even harsher than Arizona's. 

The Legacy of HB56 - Racial Profiling of Schoolchildren

November 8, 2011 by Left in Alabama

Racial profiling of American citizens -- it is happening in Alabama schools as well as on our streets.

GONZALES: I asked her why they give this paper to my daughter. What was the reason they give this paper to my daughter, and her answer was that they give this paper to all the children that appear like they are not from here. [...]

Far as I can see and far as I can feel, my daughter is being singled out and racial profiled and discriminated because of her color and race and origin from where they think she is from.

This is not an unintended consequence of the Beason-Hammon law.  Racial profiling was predictable, it was predicted, the Republican Legislature voted for this abomination anyway and Governor Bentley signed it.  Nothing unintended about this. 

Doing "Anything Short of Shooting" Hispanics to Drive Them Out of Alabama

November 8, 2011 by Left in Alabama

When Mo Brooks said he would "do anything short of shooting" undocumented immigrants, he was only expressing Republican policy on the issue.  In truth, he was glossing over it just a bit because the true GOP policy is to do anything short of shooting hispanic immigrants -- legal and illegal -- to drive them out.

The Republican intent, expressed in Alabama's Beason-Hammon law, is to make it impossible for these immigrants to live in Alabama and other Republican-controlled states.  They haven't made it legal to shoot immigrants (thank God for small favors) but they have made it virtually impossible for hispanic immigrants to live here.  And by "live," I literally mean "sustain life."

Why No "God-Talk" From HB-56 Proponents?

November 7, 2011 by Left in Alabama

Samford religion professor, Scott McGinnis, had an outstanding column in the Birmingham News yesterday.  It almost made me wish I were a Baptist.  McGinnis makes this shrewd observation about the proponents of HB-56: 

There has been no shortage of denunciations of Alabama's immigration law on moral grounds, but the law's proponents have been curiously silent in defending the law in this regard. 

He accurately points out that religious belief has been used to justify virtually every policy position ever in Alabama.  And he's right.  From slavery, to Jim Crow, to low taxes, to abortion legislation, the most vocal coterie of supporters was a virtual church choir warning of moral disaster if we didn't separate the races, force kids to pray in school, restrict GLBT equality, and cut social services for children even as we passed restrictive birth control and abortion bills.