Hearing begins on request for injunction against Alabama immigration law
By The Birmingham News
Wednesday, August 24, 2011, 9:00 AM

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- The U.S. Department of Justice, leaders from three large Alabama churches and a host of interest groups and individual plaintiffs are at a hearing before Chief U.S. District Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn on whether she should grant a preliminary injunction to temporarily halt enforcement of Alabama's new immigration law while a court challenge is resolved.

Blackburn has consolidated three federal lawsuits -- from the U.S. Justice Department, bishops from three denominations, and several immigrant groups and individuals. All three suits seek to void part or all of Alabama's new immigration law.

Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange is expected to lead a team of state lawyers during the hearing that was to begin at 9 a.m. in a Birmingham federal courtroom. The Attorney General's Office declined to comment on the hearing, saying its positions are laid out in the court record. However, state officials sued in the lawsuit have said the new law in many respects just repeats what's already in federal law.

Those who oppose the new law say it tries to usurp federal authority and discourage illegal immigrants from sending their children to schools, and to make it difficult to live and work in the state.


Vigil in front of the Hugo L. Black U.S. Courthouse in Birmingham on Aug. 23 on the eve of a federal court hearing on Alabama's immigration law.

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