Thread: Ala. governor signs revisions targeting illegal immigrants

May 18, 2012

Ala. governor signs revisions targeting illegal immigrants

By Alan Gomez, USA TODAY Updated 31m ago

Last year, Alabama passed what was widely considered the toughest state law in the nation aimed at driving illegal immigrants out of the state. Friday, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley signed a new law that revises, and in some cases expands, that law.

Bentley, a Republican, had initially warned the Republican-controlled legislature that the new law – HB 658 – included provisions that worried him. He called legislators into a 10-day special session in part to address those problems.

But by Friday afternoon, Bentley said it was clear that legislators weren't interested in making those revisions.

"In an effort to remove the distraction of immigration from the other business of the special session, I decided to sign House Bill 658 and allow the progress made in the legislation move forward," Bentley said in a statement.

"There is substantial progress in this bill. Burdens on legal residents and businesses are eased, and the goal remains the same – that if you live and work in Alabama, you must do so legally. ...

"The bottom line is there are too many positive aspects of House Bill 658 for it to go unsigned. I don't want to lose the progress we have made," he said. "This bill reduces burdens on legal residents as they conduct government transactions. The bill also reduces burdens on businesses while still holding them accountable to hire legal workers. These changes make this a stronger bill."

Two parts of the law worry Bentley, as well as advocacy groups who have been closely following the law.

One requires the state Department of Homeland Security to publish on the Internet the names of illegal immigrants who appear in any state court. Groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center have labeled that requirement a "scarlet letter" and would open illegal immigrants to harassment and vigilantism.

The other section calls for school children in the state's K-12 system to have their immigration status checked when they enroll. Bill sponsors Rep. Micky Hammon and Sen. Scott Beason have said that would allow the state to gauge the cost of educating illegal immigrants in the state but would not be used to deport children.

A similar section was blocked by a federal court last year, as well as other provisions of the law.

Justin Cox, an attorney with the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project who has been tracking the legislation in Montgomery, said he was "extremely disappointed" that Bentley signed the bill into law.

"Initially it looked as if he was willing to stand up to the more radical part of the legislature, but he apparently decided it wasn't worth the fight," Cox said. "And, unfortunately, all Alabamians will suffer from his decision."

Mary Bauer, legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, called it an "incredibly dark day" for Alabama.

"Despite the fact that our state has suffered incredibly over the past year" because of the original immigration law, she said, "the Alabama legislature and Governor Bentley have chosen to double down by passing and signing into law an even more extreme measure."

Ala. governor signs revisions targeting illegal immigrants

May 18, 2012
Alabama Gets Strict Immigration Law as Governor Relents
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
The New York Times

Only a day after calling a special session and urging the Alabama Legislature to make more changes to the state’s immigration enforcement law than the modest ones they had passed, Gov. Robert Bentley on Friday signed the bill into law anyway.

The governor’s decision was arguably the quickest of several reversals that have taken place in recent weeks as politicians in Montgomery, the capital, debated the need for changes to Alabama’s immigration enforcement law, considered the strictest and most sweeping in the country.

The Legislature had seemed poised just weeks earlier to pass a bill that would make a number of changes to the original law that were intended to address complaints by business groups, local law enforcement officials and legal Alabama residents.

But in the last few days of the session, which ended Wednesday, another version of the bill gained steam, one that preserved more of the original law and also added some controversial provisions, like one requiring the state to publish the name of every illegal immigrant who appears in court for a violation of state law.

After that bill was passed, Governor Bentley added the immigration law to the list of topics lawmakers were to consider during a special session that began on Thursday. Declining to sign the bill that was passed, Mr. Bentley specifically recommended that they revisit the new provision concerning illegal immigrants in court and a provision from the original law, currently barred by a federal court, that required schools to ascertain the immigration status of enrolling students.

Lawmakers immediately responded by filing bills nearly identical to the one that passed the day before, only now requiring the state to publish photographs of immigrants in court in addition to their names.

Saying that he still had concerns about the law, Governor Bentley acknowledged in a statement that “the Legislature did not have the appetite for addressing further revisions at this time.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/19/us...r-relents.html

Great news! A victory for our side!

W

RELATED ..

Joel Osteen Speaks Out on Ala. Immigration Law

A tough new Alabama law targets illegal immigrants and sends families fleeing

washingtonpost.com

By Pamela Constable, Published: October 8, 2011

Foley, Ala. — Trailer by trailer, yard sale by yard sale, and pew by empty pew, a poor but tightknit immigrant community on Alabama’s breezy Gulf Coast is rapidly disintegrating.

This time it is not a tornado or hurricane uprooting families and scattering them to the winds. It is a new state law, largely upheld last week by a federal district judge, that seeks to drive illegal immigrants from the state by curtailing many of their rights, punishing anyone who knowingly employs, houses or assists them, and requiring schools and police to verify immigrants’ legal status.

Other states, including Arizona, Georgia and Colorado, have passed similar laws in the past several years in a growing trend by state legislatures to crack down on illegal immigration within their borders in the absence of comprehensive federal action. But Alabama’s new law is the toughest passed so far, and it is the only one to withstand federal lawsuits and other legal challenges, allowing it to take virtually full effect.

Across Alabama, news of the court ruling has swiftly spread panic and chaos among trailer parks and working-class areas where legal and illegal immigrant families from Mexico and Central America — as many as 150,000 people, by some estimates — live and work at jobs their bosses say local residents largely refuse to do.

In Foley, a sprawling seaside resort town where hundreds of Hispanic immigrants work in restaurants, sod farms and seafood industries, many families last week were taking their children out of school, piling their furniture into trucks, offering baby clothes and bicycles on front lawns for sale and saying tearful goodbyes to neighbors and co-workers they might never see again.

“This is the saddest thing I have experienced in my 18 years as a priest,” said the Rev. Paul Zoghby, who ministers to a large Hispanic flock at St. Margaret of Scotland Church. “We’ve already lost 20 percent of the congregation in the past few weeks, and many more will be gone by next week. It is a human tragedy.”
After evening Mass on Thursday, families mingled worriedly in the church lobby, asking how to get help and debating where to flee.

“I have a cousin in Nashville. Maybe we’ll try there,” said a muscular construction worker, holding a sleeping infant in his arms.

Others said they planned to head for Texas or Florida, where the laws are not as strict. None wanted to return to Mexico, where they said wages are pitifully low and violent crime is a constant threat.

Tough choices

Many such families have legal and illegal members, which presents them with wrenching choices. One illegal couple’s daughter, born in the United States, just won a college scholarship; another such couple’s daughter was recently engaged to a local boy. Both decided they would flee Alabama anyway, reluctantly putting family unity and safety before individual opportunities.

“This law has shattered all our dreams,” said Maria, 35, a house cleaner and mother of two from central Mexico, weeping and clutching at her husband for support in a church meeting room. An illegal immigrant, she asked her last name not be used. “We do the jobs no one else wants to do. We pay taxes. We do not harm anyone. Now the government says they don’t want us here, but we have nowhere to go. All the doors are closing on us. We can’t even drive a car without being afraid. I cannot believe this is God’s will.”

The new law passed the state legislature in June after an unprecedented Republican sweep of both chambers last year and the election of a Republican governor, Robert Bentley. Amid a sustained economic slump and rising unemployment, this political majority finally gave longtime advocates of a crackdown on illegal immigrants the votes they needed.
Sponsors of the measure are unapologetic about its tough provisions. The law makes it a criminal offense for an illegal immigrant to register a car, pay a utility bill or rent an apartment, and it similarly penalizes anyone who hires, shelters or signs a contract with an illegal immigrant.
As its backers see it, the law is a long-overdue panacea that will open up thousands of jobs to struggling Alabamans squeezed out of the market by cheap illegal labor. They also hope the law — after surviving legal challenges by the Justice Department and other groups — will pressure the federal government to overhaul its immigration system.

“I have no doubt that this is the best thing for the long-term economic health of our state and no doubt that this is what a majority of the people of Alabama wants,” said state Sen. Scott Beason, chief sponsor of the measure. “We have almost 10 percent unemployment, and we need to put our people to work. I understand there are concerns, but the law needs to be given a chance.”
Despite such assertions, the law has aroused condemnation and concern from an assortment of Alabamans, including some unusual allies. White farmers, including conservative Republicans, complain that their field crews have fled and that their crops will rot on the vine. Black church and civil rights leaders, whose communities suffer from high unemployment, decry the law as a reprise of Alabama’s racist history.

“These Republican politicians are running for office on Christian values, but this law is in blatant disregard of Christian values. It is bringing back the shameful and ugly past of our state,” said the Rev. Roger Price, pastor of Birmingham’s iconic 16th Street Baptist Church, which was bombed in 1963 during the civil rights conflict.

“I admit we have an immigration problem,” he said, “but this is not the way to solve it.”
Local government officials in heavily Hispanic communities have also expressed worry, confusion and indignation over aspects of the law. Some police officials privately say they are uncomfortable about how far they should go in checking drivers’ legal status. Some school officials are upset about the effect the law has had on Hispanic parents who fear they will be deported while their children are in class.

William Lawrence, the principal of Foley Elementary School, said frightened immigrant families withdrew 25 students last week, even though all the children were U.S. citizens. He said the Hispanic community was swept by rumors that parents would be arrested when they came to collect their children. Many families asked teachers and others to act as their children’s emergency drivers or legal guardians.

“We are doing all we can to reassure parents that their kids are safe, and things have calmed down some, but this was extremely wrong,” Lawrence said. “I hope our lawmakers did not do it deliberately. They won, because now people are leaving. But there is no reason to create such terrible fear of parents being separated from their children.”

Alabama, a largely agricultural state, has long relied on seasonal Mexican farm laborers to harvest peaches, tomatoes and other crops under temporary guest worker visa programs. What has made the past decade different, officials said, is a surge of illegal immigrants who have put down roots, taken permanent jobs at low wages and drained public health and education budgets. Officials estimate the state spends about $280 million per year on public services for illegal immigrant families.

Republican lawmakers said they want to bolster the national guest worker program to return to an orderly legal flow of foreign field laborers, but a number of farm owners interviewed last week said that the program was cumbersome and inadequate and that they could not find local American workers willing to toil long hours in hot fields.

“There is a lot of heavy lifting and manual labor, and you are out there in the sun and the rain. It is just not attractive to Americans,” said Mac Higginbotham, an official with the Alabama Farmers Federation.

The group represents about 40,000 farmers and opposed the new immigration law.
“We have people losing 40 to 60 percent of their crops this season,” Higginbotham said. “The law is affecting everyone.”

Residents’ reactions

In Foley, some residents have been frustrated by the influx of Hispanic immigrants, especially those that are illegal. Some longtime parishioners left St. Margaret when it initiated a formal ministry to Hispanics. A few Hispanic church members mentioned incidents such as drivers yelling that they should go home or pharmacists demanding to see proof of legality before filling prescriptions.

“If I were Mexican, I would probably want to come here, too, but they need to become citizens in a legal way and pay taxes like the rest of us,” said Mary Reinhart, a Foley resident who works at a resort near the beach.

People “start businesses that undercut everyone because they work so much cheaper with illegals,” she said. “There needs to be more regulation and a proper way to make them legal.”
But there was also an outpouring of sympathy and sadness from longtime inhabitants of Foley toward Hispanic families they had gotten to know as neighbors, co-workers, tenants or employees. Even some who said they opposed illegal immigration and supported the new law seemed to feel conflicted about seeing families they had come to know and like suddenly leaving.

At a Mexican restaurant where Zoghby, the pastor, treated several Mexican families to farewell tacos and beer Thursday, a gray-haired customer came over and hugged one of the departing guests.

At a half-empty trailer park where several Hispanic families were packing up on Friday, the longtime manager, Tom Boatwright, watched glumly.

“They are my very best renters,” he said. “They are hardworking and never cause trouble. I really hate to see them go.”

A mile away, in a development of new houses, one Mexican family was loading a decade’s worth of belongings into a pickup truck and a neighboring family had spread clothing, toys, furniture and bed linens out on the lawn for sale. A stream of people pulled up in cars and trucks to browse, most of them white Alabamans. Several said they supported the new law or wanted to see the border shut down, but all treated the Mexican families with cordial familiarity.

“I don’t know what to think. The law is supposed to be doing one thing, but it seems to be doing the opposite,” said Lisa Snow, a grandmother who was rifling through baby clothes at the yard sale. Snow said she had just lost her office job but was sorry that the Mexican families were losing everything. “It just feels very personal now,” she said.

A tough new Alabama law targets illegal immigrants and sends families fleeing - The Washington Post



source: A tough new Alabama law targets illegal immigrants and sends families fleeing - The Washington Post

First article on the Homepage:
http://www.alipac.us/content/ala-gov...mmigrants-528/

Alabama Governor Signs Revised Immigration Law – Illegal Alien Advocates Enraged

By John Hill on May 19, 2012





The Alabama Legislature scored a huge victory on Friday, as Gov. Robert Bentley reluctantly signed immigration law H.B. 658 – after legislators refused to “moderate” provisions Bentley (and open-borders activists) had complained were too “harsh” against illegal aliens.
Alabama’s immigration law H.B. 56, patterned after Arizona’s S.B. 1070, passed in 2011, and has been called the toughest state immigration law in America. But several issues were causing legal Alabamans longer lines to obtain state documents and foreign executives issues with being detained, and those provisions were fixed in the new bill.
But H.B. 658 (PDF) also added two outstanding new provisions that made the law even tougher against illegals:

• One requires the state Department of Homeland Security to publish on the Internet the names of illegal immigrants who appear in any state court.
• The other section calls for school children in the state’s K-12 system to have their immigration status checked when they enroll. Bill sponsors Rep. Micky Hammon and Sen. Scott Beason have said that would allow the state to gauge the cost of educating illegal immigrants

Open-borders advocates freaked out over the new provisions and called on Bentley to veto it. And, sadly, Bentley whined about the bill, and called for a special session to “fix” it – in particular to remove the school provision.
But legislators made it clear they would not kow-tow to Bentley’s wavering resolve – and refused to make any changes to the bill during the special session. Bentley’s hand was forced, and he decided to sign the bill anyway, an extraordinary move. Bentley explained it as follows:

“In an effort to remove the distraction of immigration from the other business of the special session, I decided to sign House Bill 658 and allow the progress made in the legislation move forward,” Bentley said in a statement. ”The bottom line is there are too many positive aspects of House Bill 658 for it to go unsigned. I don’t want to lose the progress we have made,” he said. “This bill reduces burdens on legal residents as they conduct government transactions. The bill also reduces burdens on businesses while still holding them accountable to hire legal workers. These changes make this a stronger bill.”

How great is the new law? Well let’s just read a sampling of “reviews” by the usual coterie of treasonous open-borders activists…

“I am extremely disappointed in [Bentley]….Initially it looked as if he was willing to stand up to the more radical part of the legislature, but he apparently decided it wasn’t worth the fight….And, unfortunately, all Alabamians will suffer from his decision.”
- Justin Cox, ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project

“Today is an incredibly dark day for Alabama….Alabama has once again made a name for itself as the worst of the worst.”
- Mary Bauer, Legal Director, Southern Poverty Law Center

In other words…two thumbs way up! If those who embrace lawless amnesty and align themselves with Mexico over Americans hate this law, you know it must be a huge improvement.
BRAVO to the authors of H.B. 658 for upholding the rule of law and making Alabama even less welcome to illegal invaders. SWA thanks Sen. Scott Beason (email, Facebook, Twitter) and Rep. Micky Hammon (email), without whose tireless advocacy, neither H.B. 56 nor the newly-improved bill would ever have become law.

Alabama Governor Signs Revised Immigration Law – Illegal Alien Advocates Enraged | Stand With Arizona

Originally Posted by HAPPY2BME

A tough new Alabama law targets illegal immigrants and sends families fleeing

washingtonpost.com

By Pamela Constable, Published: October 8, 2011

Foley, Ala. — Trailer by trailer, yard sale by yard sale, and pew by empty pew, a poor but tightknit immigrant community on Alabama’s breezy Gulf Coast is rapidly disintegrating.

This time it is not a tornado or hurricane uprooting families and scattering them to the winds. It is a new state law, largely upheld last week by a federal district judge, that seeks to drive illegal immigrants from the state by curtailing many of their rights, punishing anyone who knowingly employs, houses or assists them, and requiring schools and police to verify immigrants’ legal status.

Other states, including Arizona, Georgia and Colorado, have passed similar laws in the past several years in a growing trend by state legislatures to crack down on illegal immigration within their borders in the absence of comprehensive federal action. But Alabama’s new law is the toughest passed so far, and it is the only one to withstand federal lawsuits and other legal challenges, allowing it to take virtually full effect.

Across Alabama, news of the court ruling has swiftly spread panic and chaos among trailer parks and working-class areas where legal and illegal immigrant families from Mexico and Central America — as many as 150,000 people, by some estimates — live and work at jobs their bosses say local residents largely refuse to do.

In Foley, a sprawling seaside resort town where hundreds of Hispanic immigrants work in restaurants, sod farms and seafood industries, many families last week were taking their children out of school, piling their furniture into trucks, offering baby clothes and bicycles on front lawns for sale and saying tearful goodbyes to neighbors and co-workers they might never see again.

“This is the saddest thing I have experienced in my 18 years as a priest,” said the Rev. Paul Zoghby, who ministers to a large Hispanic flock at St. Margaret of Scotland Church. “We’ve already lost 20 percent of the congregation in the past few weeks, and many more will be gone by next week. It is a human tragedy.”
After evening Mass on Thursday, families mingled worriedly in the church lobby, asking how to get help and debating where to flee.

“I have a cousin in Nashville. Maybe we’ll try there,” said a muscular construction worker, holding a sleeping infant in his arms.

Others said they planned to head for Texas or Florida, where the laws are not as strict. None wanted to return to Mexico, where they said wages are pitifully low and violent crime is a constant threat.

Tough choices

Many such families have legal and illegal members, which presents them with wrenching choices. One illegal couple’s daughter, born in the United States, just won a college scholarship; another such couple’s daughter was recently engaged to a local boy. Both decided they would flee Alabama anyway, reluctantly putting family unity and safety before individual opportunities.

“This law has shattered all our dreams,” said Maria, 35, a house cleaner and mother of two from central Mexico, weeping and clutching at her husband for support in a church meeting room. An illegal immigrant, she asked her last name not be used. “We do the jobs no one else wants to do. We pay taxes. We do not harm anyone. Now the government says they don’t want us here, but we have nowhere to go. All the doors are closing on us. We can’t even drive a car without being afraid. I cannot believe this is God’s will.”

The new law passed the state legislature in June after an unprecedented Republican sweep of both chambers last year and the election of a Republican governor, Robert Bentley. Amid a sustained economic slump and rising unemployment, this political majority finally gave longtime advocates of a crackdown on illegal immigrants the votes they needed.
Sponsors of the measure are unapologetic about its tough provisions. The law makes it a criminal offense for an illegal immigrant to register a car, pay a utility bill or rent an apartment, and it similarly penalizes anyone who hires, shelters or signs a contract with an illegal immigrant.
As its backers see it, the law is a long-overdue panacea that will open up thousands of jobs to struggling Alabamans squeezed out of the market by cheap illegal labor. They also hope the law — after surviving legal challenges by the Justice Department and other groups — will pressure the federal government to overhaul its immigration system.

“I have no doubt that this is the best thing for the long-term economic health of our state and no doubt that this is what a majority of the people of Alabama wants,” said state Sen. Scott Beason, chief sponsor of the measure. “We have almost 10 percent unemployment, and we need to put our people to work. I understand there are concerns, but the law needs to be given a chance.”
Despite such assertions, the law has aroused condemnation and concern from an assortment of Alabamans, including some unusual allies. White farmers, including conservative Republicans, complain that their field crews have fled and that their crops will rot on the vine. Black church and civil rights leaders, whose communities suffer from high unemployment, decry the law as a reprise of Alabama’s racist history.

“These Republican politicians are running for office on Christian values, but this law is in blatant disregard of Christian values. It is bringing back the shameful and ugly past of our state,” said the Rev. Roger Price, pastor of Birmingham’s iconic 16th Street Baptist Church, which was bombed in 1963 during the civil rights conflict.

“I admit we have an immigration problem,” he said, “but this is not the way to solve it.”
Local government officials in heavily Hispanic communities have also expressed worry, confusion and indignation over aspects of the law. Some police officials privately say they are uncomfortable about how far they should go in checking drivers’ legal status. Some school officials are upset about the effect the law has had on Hispanic parents who fear they will be deported while their children are in class.

William Lawrence, the principal of Foley Elementary School, said frightened immigrant families withdrew 25 students last week, even though all the children were U.S. citizens. He said the Hispanic community was swept by rumors that parents would be arrested when they came to collect their children. Many families asked teachers and others to act as their children’s emergency drivers or legal guardians.

“We are doing all we can to reassure parents that their kids are safe, and things have calmed down some, but this was extremely wrong,” Lawrence said. “I hope our lawmakers did not do it deliberately. They won, because now people are leaving. But there is no reason to create such terrible fear of parents being separated from their children.”

Alabama, a largely agricultural state, has long relied on seasonal Mexican farm laborers to harvest peaches, tomatoes and other crops under temporary guest worker visa programs. What has made the past decade different, officials said, is a surge of illegal immigrants who have put down roots, taken permanent jobs at low wages and drained public health and education budgets. Officials estimate the state spends about $280 million per year on public services for illegal immigrant families.

Republican lawmakers said they want to bolster the national guest worker program to return to an orderly legal flow of foreign field laborers, but a number of farm owners interviewed last week said that the program was cumbersome and inadequate and that they could not find local American workers willing to toil long hours in hot fields.

“There is a lot of heavy lifting and manual labor, and you are out there in the sun and the rain. It is just not attractive to Americans,” said Mac Higginbotham, an official with the Alabama Farmers Federation.

The group represents about 40,000 farmers and opposed the new immigration law.
“We have people losing 40 to 60 percent of their crops this season,” Higginbotham said. “The law is affecting everyone.”

Residents’ reactions

In Foley, some residents have been frustrated by the influx of Hispanic immigrants, especially those that are illegal. Some longtime parishioners left St. Margaret when it initiated a formal ministry to Hispanics. A few Hispanic church members mentioned incidents such as drivers yelling that they should go home or pharmacists demanding to see proof of legality before filling prescriptions.

“If I were Mexican, I would probably want to come here, too, but they need to become citizens in a legal way and pay taxes like the rest of us,” said Mary Reinhart, a Foley resident who works at a resort near the beach.

People “start businesses that undercut everyone because they work so much cheaper with illegals,” she said. “There needs to be more regulation and a proper way to make them legal.”
But there was also an outpouring of sympathy and sadness from longtime inhabitants of Foley toward Hispanic families they had gotten to know as neighbors, co-workers, tenants or employees. Even some who said they opposed illegal immigration and supported the new law seemed to feel conflicted about seeing families they had come to know and like suddenly leaving.

At a Mexican restaurant where Zoghby, the pastor, treated several Mexican families to farewell tacos and beer Thursday, a gray-haired customer came over and hugged one of the departing guests.

At a half-empty trailer park where several Hispanic families were packing up on Friday, the longtime manager, Tom Boatwright, watched glumly.

“They are my very best renters,” he said. “They are hardworking and never cause trouble. I really hate to see them go.”

A mile away, in a development of new houses, one Mexican family was loading a decade’s worth of belongings into a pickup truck and a neighboring family had spread clothing, toys, furniture and bed linens out on the lawn for sale. A stream of people pulled up in cars and trucks to browse, most of them white Alabamans. Several said they supported the new law or wanted to see the border shut down, but all treated the Mexican families with cordial familiarity.

“I don’t know what to think. The law is supposed to be doing one thing, but it seems to be doing the opposite,” said Lisa Snow, a grandmother who was rifling through baby clothes at the yard sale. Snow said she had just lost her office job but was sorry that the Mexican families were losing everything. “It just feels very personal now,” she said.

A tough new Alabama law targets illegal immigrants and sends families fleeing - The Washington Post



source: A tough new Alabama law targets illegal immigrants and sends families fleeing - The Washington Post

If these illegals had come legally and learned to assimilate, they wouldn't have this backlash against them! Since they wish to destroy almost everything I hold dear, I have no pity on them.