BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Because Birmingham was the
birthplace of the civil rights movement for African-Americans, it is
only fitting that a similar movement for immigrants starts here, House
Democrats said Monday.
Birmingham has “a historic significance … that changed the very character of this country,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz.
He
is in Alabama this week with nine other congressional Democrats to help
start a campaign to repeal the state’s immigration law, known as HB 56.
Because the law is modeled after Arizona’s SB 1070, Arizona has a lot
to teach Alabama, Grijalva said.
But Alabama state lawmakers said advice is not what they need from Capitol Hill lawmakers.
“If
they would go back to Washington and pass immigration reform we
wouldn’t have to do their job for them,” state Rep. Jim Patterson said
Friday. Patterson, a Meridianville Republican, was a co-sponsor of HB
56.
His argument is similar to those made in
Arizona for SB 1070 — and it’s not the only similarity between the
states and their respective immigration laws.
Both
laws were written by Kris Kobach, now the Kansas secretary of state.
Both would let local police check a suspect’s immigration status. Both
have been challenged in court by the U.S. Justice Department as an
infringement on federal authority and both have had some provisions
blocked by courts.
But while there are
similarities, Alabama’s law goes further than Arizona’s in some cases,
said Grijalva, citing reports that “children are being asked their
(immigration) status in the school.”
Kobach has
said that that provision was only meant to gather data on the
immigration status of schoolchildren so the state could analyze the cost
of educating undocumented children in public schools.
The
provision that let public school officials ask students for their
immigration status was put on hold by the courts, along with other
provisions. Unlike in Arizona, however, courts considering the Alabama
case said local law enforcement officials here could ask about a
suspect’s immigration status.
The Democratic
lawmakers scheduled a day of meetings on the law, including an ad hoc
hearing at the Birmingham City Council where they heard from local law
enforcers and school officials as well as Alabama residents affected by
the law. They ended the day at the 16th Street Baptist Church, where a
1963 bombing that killed four girls and wounded 20 other people on their
way to Sunday services became a key event in the civil rights movement
of the 1960s.
While the visiting Democrats argued that the Alabama law has overreached, its supporters said it has lived up to its purpose.
State
Rep. Terri Collins, a Decatur Republican and co-sponsor of HB 56, said
the law has driven so many undocumented immigrants out of the state that
American citizens can fill up the jobs the immigrants are leaving
behind.
“I know people who have been able to get
jobs that couldn’t before,” Collins said Friday. “And that was the
intention of the law.”
Republican and Democratic
lawmakers do agree that Alabama agriculture has been affected by the
loss of immigrant workers. But they disagree on the solution.
Grijalva
said that the federal government needs to act on immigration reform
that leads to a pathway to citizenship, but Patterson disagrees. He said
that undocumented immigrants who want to work in the United States need
to go back to their home countries and apply for temporary work visas
to enter legally if they want to work here.
“If
President Obama and the Democrats were trying to help the people who are
here illegally, they would get their butts down here and get them green
cards so they can work,” Patterson said.
State
Republicans have said they are willing to “tweak” the law in the next
legislative session to clear up some misunderstandings among Alabama
residents.
But Grijalva said Alabama can still learn a lot from Arizona when it comes to enforcing state immigration laws.
“Coming
from Arizona and the experiences we had with (SB) 1070 lead me to try
to explain to people that there is consequences that do go along with
this,” he said.
Collins said she has already seen the results.
“Overall it has had good implications for the state,” Collins said.
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(c) 2011, Conkrite News Service.
Distributed by MCT Information Services
Distributed by MCT Information Services
