Thread: AL - Protestors sing, pray against immigration law outside House chamber

1:13 PM, Apr. 19, 2012

Written by
Brian Lyman

Montgomery Advertiser


A group of protestors that included undocumented immigrants filled the lobby outside the House chamber Thursday afternoon, urging lawmakers to repeal the state's immigration law. / Brian Lyman/Montgomery Advertiser

MONTGOMERY — A group of protestors that included undocumented immigrants filled the lobby outside the House chamber Thursday afternoon, urging lawmakers to repeal the state's immigration law.

The group of about 60 people joined hands, praying and singing in English and Spanish about the law, known as HB 56.

“We pray legislators will have mercy on all the people of Alabama,” said Luis Robledo, an interpreter and community organizer for the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama.

The House is scheduled debate changes this afternoon to HB56. The revisions, contained in a bill known as HB658, pull back on some of the most controversial provisions, including one that would have required schools to collect information on immigration status when a student enrolls. However, the legislation also widens the scope of a provision that allows law enforcement officers to check the status of those arrested or pulled over during traffic stops.

The House took up HB658 after a two-hour filibuster of the chamber’s special order calendar, led by the Legislative Black Caucus, whose members called the law discriminatory and unnecessary. Rep. Micky Hammon, R-Decatur, the sponsor of both HB56 and the bill changing it, said the changes would make a law he called the “strongest” in the nation easier to enforce.

The crowd of protestors included Nancy Santillan, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who crossed the desert with her two-year-old. Santillan, who until recently worked at a Hyundai parts supplier, said through a translator she came for work and to escape grinding poverty in Mexico.

In Mexico, she said, “you either pay rent or you eat or you dress yourself. And I wanted my daughter to have a better life. We work for every dollar we earn.”

Santillan said she paid taxes and did not claim services. Her daughter is now eight, and Santillan said she did not have plans to leave the state.

“I don’t know any other places, and I have faith the law will be repealed,” she said. “For my daughter, her family is here, her friends are here, her teachers are here, her life is here. It’s the only life she knows.”

Protestors sing, pray against immigration law outside House chamber | The Montgomery Advertiser | montgomeryadvertiser.com