Thread: 2-day anti-immigration law event to include march in Montgomery

2-day anti-immigration law event to include march in Montgomery

al.com
By The Associated Press
Updated: Friday, December 16, 2011, 7:19 AM


Dream Activist demonstrator Ernesto Zumaya, 24, of Los Angeles, leads protestors in a march outside the Capitol in Montgomery, Ala., Tuesday Nov. 15, 2011. About a hundred demonstrators gathered to protest Alabama's strong new immigration law. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

MONTGOMERY, Alabama — Immigrant rights advocates and civil rights leaders are gathering in Montgomery for a two-day event to call for repeal of Alabama's immigration law. The event includes a march Saturday from the Capitol to the Governor's Mansion.

Veteran civil rights leader C.T. Vivian was in Montgomery 50 years ago as one of the Freedom Riders who integrated Southern bus stations. Vivian says he's back because people are still passing laws to put down the lowest level of society.

Vivian and another Freedom Rider, Catherine Burks-Brooks, are scheduled to speak to participants Friday night. Those scheduled to participate in the march Saturday include the president of the NAACP, Ben Jealous, and the president of the National Council of La Raza, Janet Murguia.

http://blog.al.com/wire/2011/12/anti...march_set.html

Hundreds Of Immigration Law Foes Rally In Alabama

officialwire.com
by Associated Press
Published on 17 December 2011

MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA (USA)

Hundreds of advocates for immigrants who gathered outside Alabama's state Capitol are calling for the repeal of a controversial law that they say harkens back to the state's segregationist past.

Protesters on Saturday waved signs saying "One Family One Alabama" on the statehouse grounds before marching to the governor's mansion.

The Republican-controlled Legislature passed the immigration law and GOP Gov. Robert Bentley signed it this year with the goal of scaring off illegal immigrants. Supporters said it would open up jobs for legal residents in a state suffering from nearly 10 percent unemployment at the time.

Parts of the law took effect in late September amid court challenges, but other parts were blocked by federal courts after lawsuits by the Obama administration, immigrant rights groups, religious organizations and others.

http://www.officialwire.com/main.php...ews&rid=137060

Immigration: Freedom Riders back to fight Alabama law

Published: Friday, December 16, 2011, 2:59 PM Updated: Friday, December 16, 2011, 4:22 PM

By The Associated Press The Associated Press
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A historic marker is located outside the Greyhound bus terminal in Montgomery, Alabama, where Freedom Riders were met by a mob and beaten on arrival May 20, 1961. Two of Freedom Riders who risked their lives to integrate Montgomery's bus station are back in the capital city with a new cause: repealing Alabama's immigration law. (The Huntsville Times/Robin Conn)


MONTGOMERY, Alabama (AP) — Two Freedom Riders who risked their lives to integrate Montgomery's bus station 50 years ago are back in the capital city with a new cause: repealing Alabama's immigration law.

The Rev. C.T. Vivian and Catherine Burks-Brooks were among hundreds who gathered Friday for a two-day event that includes a Saturday morning rally on the Capitol steps and a children's march to the governor's mansion.

Vivian said Alabama's tough immigration law is based on the same hostility as segregation laws 50 years ago. "White America has never seen anybody as fully human except other white people," he said.

Burks-Brooks said the attitudes faced by brown-skinned people today remind her of the experiences of black Alabamians in the 1960s. "But because of what we did, it is not as open and not as rough," she said.

Burks-Brooks was one of the Freedom Riders on a Greyhound bus headed from Birmingham to Montgomery on May 20, 1961. Their goal was to test a U.S. Supreme Court decision banning segregation in interstate transportation and to force an end to separate waiting rooms designated white and colored.

When they reached Montgomery, an angry white mob attacked the riders. Several were beaten, but Burks-Brooks and a few others escaped in a cab.

Vivian, who had been active in earlier lunch counter sit-ins around the South, traveled to Montgomery to replace some of those injured. He joined the Freedom Riders as they left Montgomery on a bus bound for Jackson, Miss., where they were arrested upon their arrival.

Vivian, 87, of Atlanta, said even though 50 years have passed, some in the South still want to look down on people of color and mistreat them. "We have made our laws around putting down the lowest level and giving a little more to the ones right above it," he said.

Burks-Brooks, 72, of Birmingham, said the interest among young people in protesting Alabama's immigration law reminds her of the enthusiasm that she and other college students had in Nashville in 1961 when they volunteered to become Freedom Riders. She advised the young people in Montgomery to go through the same training as the Freedom Riders to make sure they practice nonviolence and are prepared to be attacked and arrested.

"They need to understand the consequences of going into something like this," she said.

Several states, including Arizona, Utah, Georgia and South Carolina, have passed immigration laws, but immigrant rights groups and civil rights activists chose to make their stand in Montgomery, in part, because of the city's history as a civil rights battleground.

"Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat here. This is where Martin Luther King was a pastor — where his home was bombed. The march from Selma, the bus boycott, all these moments in the history of the fight for justice are marked here and our presence now is needed to mark another struggle: to end Alabama's anti-immigrant racial profiling law," said Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change.

Proponents and opponents of Alabama's immigration law have called it the nation's toughest and most comprehensive. It affects many functions of everyday life, including proving legal residency to buy a car tag, get a job or register a child in school. Some provisions have been put on hold by federal courts.

Proponents say they designed the law to force illegal immigrants to self-deport and open up jobs for legal residents.
Burks-Brooks said the law had a dramatic effect on immigrants in her Birmingham neighborhood. "All of the sudden they vanished. I go to Walmart and don't see any," she said.

Alabama's governor is asking the Legislature to clarify and simplify the law. The state's attorney general is recommending the Legislature repeal a few sections put on hold by the federal courts.

People arriving for the Montgomery rally said that's not enough. They said a mishmash of state immigration laws is not the answer and Congress must create a way for people to gain legal status if they have a history of working in the country.
"These workers are highly valued and needed," said Adrienne DerVartanian, director of immigration and labor rights at Farmworker Justice.

Gov. Robert Bentley said he welcomes the groups' views because "I believe in free speech and that's what this is."
But he said Alabama's law was necessary because the federal government wouldn't act. "We are not going to repeal the bill," he said.
http://blog.al.com/wire/2011/12/immi...tml#incart_mce

Some of the comments are very interesting:

westmob December 16, 2011 at 3:05PM
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Yeah, let's equate the plight of illegals to those of the Freedom Riders to score political points. These days, there are no cards even dealt anymore other than the race card; from the bottom of the deck.

TVC15 December 16, 2011 at 3:19PM
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Vivian said Alabama's tough immigration law is based on the same hostility as segregation laws 50 years ago. "White America has never seen anybody as fully human except other white people," he said.

As long as you're not a hated white person, you can make blatantly offensive racist statements like that and not get called on it. But guess what? The game's just about over.

Ugly American December 16, 2011 at 3:40PM
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So foreign colonists, as long as they are brown, have a civil right to ignore any US law they find inconvenient? And instead of leaving, they count on the support of their nations on their behalf, as well as numerous gullible Americans?
When people come into this country, establish their own communities with a foreign language and never bother to try to assimilate, while being supported politically and socially by their countries is not illegal immigration. That is colonization.
If the people who fought for the proper rights of their fellow Americans now want to give rights to illegal foreign colonists that citizens don't have, maybe they should look a little closer at what they are advocating.

Any law that puts pressure on illegals and undocumented persons to leave is a good law. LEGAL America is not going to stand for any AMNESTY and we are certainly not going to just give these criminals citizenship just because they demand it.

BE LEGAL OR BE GONE!!!!!