New York Times (Editorial): A new legislative session has given Alabama lawmakers an opportunity to repeal the cruel, destructive and embarrassing immigration law they passed last year — the worst in the nation. It looks as if they’re blowing it.
The Legislature, with the support of Gov. Robert Bentley, who signed the bill into law, seems determined to tinker at the margins. A new bill would remove a few sections of the law that have been blocked in court but hangs on to others. It still seeks to use police as immigration agents, criminalize acts of charity toward undocumented immigrants and nullify contracts the undocumented sign. And it retreats not an inch from its sponsors’ goal of solving Alabama’s problems through mass immigrant expulsion.
The law, H.B. 56, has uprooted immigrant families, driving workers out of state and underground. It has saddled government agencies with litigation and burdened citizens with maddening red tape. And it has raised the risk of racial profiling and other police abuses while reinvigorating Alabama’s reputation for bigotry.
The changes under the new measure will do little to end the abuses and inconveniences created by the law. Companies, for example, won’t automatically lose their licenses if they knowingly hire unauthorized workers. Instead, penalties would be left up to a judge. Landlords won’t be arrested for renting to undocumented immigrants, but churches and humanitarian groups still risk prosecution for harboring or transporting them. The police would be allowed to check drivers’ papers only after ticketing or arresting them, not after any stop. But officers would also be able to detain anyone else in the car, a blatantly unconstitutional overreach.
Alabama’s leaders seemed hardly bothered last year when civil-rights and immigrant advocates said H.B. 56 was a mistake. They maintain that today. “The essence of the law will not change,” Mr. Bentley said recently.
The governor and his fellow Republicans have a colossal mess to clean up — one of their own making. They should learn from Mississippi, where the Legislature looked over at Alabama’s disgrace and this month allowed a similar bill to die.
The Legislature, with the support of Gov. Robert Bentley, who signed the bill into law, seems determined to tinker at the margins. A new bill would remove a few sections of the law that have been blocked in court but hangs on to others. It still seeks to use police as immigration agents, criminalize acts of charity toward undocumented immigrants and nullify contracts the undocumented sign. And it retreats not an inch from its sponsors’ goal of solving Alabama’s problems through mass immigrant expulsion.
The law, H.B. 56, has uprooted immigrant families, driving workers out of state and underground. It has saddled government agencies with litigation and burdened citizens with maddening red tape. And it has raised the risk of racial profiling and other police abuses while reinvigorating Alabama’s reputation for bigotry.
The changes under the new measure will do little to end the abuses and inconveniences created by the law. Companies, for example, won’t automatically lose their licenses if they knowingly hire unauthorized workers. Instead, penalties would be left up to a judge. Landlords won’t be arrested for renting to undocumented immigrants, but churches and humanitarian groups still risk prosecution for harboring or transporting them. The police would be allowed to check drivers’ papers only after ticketing or arresting them, not after any stop. But officers would also be able to detain anyone else in the car, a blatantly unconstitutional overreach.
Alabama’s leaders seemed hardly bothered last year when civil-rights and immigrant advocates said H.B. 56 was a mistake. They maintain that today. “The essence of the law will not change,” Mr. Bentley said recently.
The governor and his fellow Republicans have a colossal mess to clean up — one of their own making. They should learn from Mississippi, where the Legislature looked over at Alabama’s disgrace and this month allowed a similar bill to die.
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