Civil rights groups sue challenging Alabama anti-illegal immigrant law

[alp227]

Source: CNN

(CNN) -- Several prominent civil rights groups filed a class action lawsuit Friday challenging Alabama's new anti-illegal immigration law, the latest such legal effort aimed at similar bills passed in various states.

The suit claims the recently passed HB 56 "endangers public safety, invites the racial profiling of Latinos, Asians and others who appear foreign to an officer, and interferes with federal law," according to a press release Friday sent by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

That group allied with several other groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, National Immigration Law Center, Asian Law Caucus and Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama. Their lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for Northern Alabama.

Mary Bauer, the Southern Poverty Law Center's legal director, told CNN that she believed the law is "radical" -- even more so than similar bills enacted in Arizona and Georgia, for instance -- and sent a clear, unwelcoming message to immigrants.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/07/08/alabama.immigration.law/index.html

[Harry Callahan]

1. That will be difficult, as they must overcome the state of being"illegal."

[greiner3]

2. Enjoy your stay;

:hi:

[Lord_Proprietor]

4. Illegals

We are a nation in which laws, not men/women, are supreme - illegals are breaking the law!

They should follow the "legal route" to get here. Seems that dems and repubs in DC are not interested in protecting our borders and enforcing immigration law, so states are beginning to take the lead in protecting their own borders. So much of California's $$$problem is caused by illegals' welfare items.

[pampango]

3. SPLC Launches Federal Court Challenge to Alabama’s Discriminatory Anti-Immigrant Law

Source: SPLC

The Southern Poverty Law Center led a coalition of civil rights groups today in filing a federal lawsuit challenging Alabama’s extreme anti-immigrant law, passed last month and inspired by Arizona’s notorious SB 1070. The Alabama law, HB 56, empowers law enforcement officials to check the immigration status of individuals, makes it a crime to knowingly transport an undocumented immigrant and requires school officials to determine the immigration status of students and their parents, among other provisions. It is set to take effect Sept. 1.

The class action lawsuit charges the immigration law is unconstitutional on multiple grounds. It will subject residents of Alabama – including countless U.S. citizens and non-citizens with permission to be in the United States – to racial profiling as well as unlawful interrogations, searches, seizures and arrests that violate the Fourth Amendment.

The lawsuit also charges that the law’s provisions regarding education will deter children from immigrant families from enrolling in public schools and will bar many non-citizens lawfully within the country from attending public colleges or universities in Alabama. These provisions violate the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution and are contrary to U.S. Supreme Court precedent. Other provisions deny individuals access to the state’s judicial system due to their immigration status – depriving them of due process guaranteed by the Constitution.

“We are fearful that HB 56 will lead to another era in this state of racial profiling and discrimination and foster hate and separation, rather than welcoming and community-building,” said John Pickens, executive director for Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, a plaintiff in the lawsuit. “What we need is a comprehensive national immigration policy. Our state legislative leaders, and Governor Bentley, should be urging our congressional representatives in Washington to support comprehensive immigration reform, rather than spending time passing and trying to enforce piecemeal state immigration laws.”

Read more: http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/news/splc-launches-federal-court-challenge-to-alabama-s-discriminatory-anti-immigration?ondntsrc=MBQ110770AIQ&newsletter=newsgen-20110708

[WatsonT]

5. Oh thank god someone is fighting this, the billionaires of this country

were losing countless hours of sleep over this.

Why, if they had to pay Americans they might have had to sell one of their gold plated yachts!

Fortunately the ACLU is working on their behalf.

Oh and all you unemployed blue collar Americans and those with jobs who are watching your wages steadily decrease . . . . well suck it.