As Alabama has supplanted Arizona as the state with the strictest immigration laws, it’s no surprise that it is also gathering supporters and opponents from all over the world. The latest out of state group to weigh in is Colorado’s Team America, led by former congressman Tom Tancredo.
From an email Tancredo sent supporters this week:
Alabama’s new immigration law, which passed its legislature this June, is the strongest and strictest immigration law in the nation …
… and for that reason it is being opposed with incredible ferocity by the Hispanic lobby, corrupt business interests and the open-borders Obama Justice Department!…
The law also forbids transactions between illegal aliens and any division of state government. This is a tremendous step forward in lessening the economic bite that illegals put on state government!
That provision of the law is starting to draw media attention from around the world as some Alabama residents are being told they can no longer have access to public water supplies.
From The International Business Times:
Under section 30 of the law, known as HB56, anyone lacking the proper immigration papers is considered to be committing a crime if they try to enter into a “business transaction” with the “state or a political subdivision of the state.” Although the law doesn’t define what constitutes a business transaction, some parties apparently believe it includes something as basic to life as clean water.
The community of Allgood features a warning notice stating that, “To be complaint with new laws concerning immigration you must have an Alabama driver’s license … or you may lose water service,” according to multiple reports. The note was posted by the Allgood Alabama Water Works; Allgood Mayor Neil Pane hasn’t publicly commented on the issue.
…
Mary Bauer, the legal director of the Southern Poverty Law center, told the newspaper the center’s hotline has received thousands of phone calls since the law was upheld and indicated that multiple municipalities may cut off water service to customers with a questionable immigration status. Families are being forced to go without clean water and even indoor plumbing until the decision is reversed in court, an impact of the law she said is blatantly unconstitutional.
Allison Neal, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, told the IBTimes that in addition to Allgood, the Montgomery Water Works is now requesting social security numbers from individuals before setting up water service to their homes. In addition, she said both the Montgomery and Houston County probate offices have indicated that those requesting water service must meet the citizenship requirements listed in the new law.
How long the Alabama law will stand is anyone’s guess as the United States Justice Department has again filed suit to overturn the law.
From eschoolnews.com:
The federal government asked an appeals court Friday to stop Alabama officials from enforcing a strict immigration law that has already driven Hispanic students from public schools and migrant workers from towns, warning that it opens the door to discrimination against even legal residents.
The Department of Justice’s filing to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also said the law, considered by many to be the most stringent immigration measure in the country, could cause considerable fallout as immigrants flee to other states or their native countries.
Whether the law stands up to repeated legal challenges, the fact is that right now immigrants–legal and illegal–are behaving as if the law is real, and it is being enforced. Immigrants are leaving the state and farmers, builders and others are feeling the strain of a shrinking labor pool.
Tancredo’s entire emaail:
Dear Friend,
Alabama’s new immigration law, which passed its legislature this June, is the strongest and strictest immigration law in the nation …
… and for that reason it is being opposed with incredible ferocity by the Hispanic lobby, corrupt business interests and the open-borders Obama Justice Department!Here is why the stakes in Alabama are so high for the entire nation.
Alabama’s new immigration law, like Arizona’s, permits local law enforcement personnel to ask for immigration papers during routine traffic stops. That is a positive step to help local law enforcement participate in immigration law enforcement.
But Alabama goes further. Their new law nullifies contracts entered into by illegal aliens, an important step in blocking illegal aliens from “mainstreaming” into everyday life in our communities.
The law also forbids transactions between illegal aliens and any division of state government. This is a tremendous step forward in lessening the economic bite that illegals put on state government!
And here is the provision of the Alabama law that really has the liberal media and the open-borders crowd going crazy …
The law requires public elementary and secondary schools to determine the immigration status of incoming students.
Why? The state wants to determine how much money it is spending to educate illegal aliens, which is absolutely reasonable.
This process will lay the groundwork for a wholesale reevaluation of “citizenship” rights being extended to children of illegal aliens … and that is why everyone from La Raza (the Ku Klux Klan without sheets and ropes), LULAC, the Obama administration and, of course, the profits-above-patriotism elements of the business lobby have reacted so violently to this particular provision of Alabama’s new law!
While a federal judge upheld nearly all the key provisions of the law (including determining the immigration status of students) last month, the politicized Obama Justice Department has vowed to continue its legal challenges to the Alabama law.
If this law is upheld, my friend, it sets up a probable collision in the U.S. Supreme Court, which could lead directly to finally overturning the policy that requires all 50 states to give free public education to illegal aliens … a policy that was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1981 because no “substantial state interest” was shown by Texas when that state tried to deny free public education to illegal aliens.
When Alabama shows how much money its already-strapped taxpayers are spending to educate illegal aliens, the outcome at the Supreme Court could be reversed!
That’s why it’s important for you and me and Team America to get behind this great legislation! We need to let the Governor and his allies know we stand with them!
I am asking you for a generous gift to Team America today so that we can buy radio air time in Alabama in support of the state’s new immigration law. Right now it is vital that average citizens in Alabama, and their elected leaders, need to know that the entire nation is relying on them to hang tough, stick by their guns and stand behind their new immigration law!
Your support of Team America helped us lead the fight against the massive Bush-Kennedy-McCain amnesty bill back in 2007. Your support helped us elect some tremendous secure-the-border-first immigration reformers to Congress and to governorships across the country last year.
Now, we need to support Alabama’s new immigration law!
Your best contribution is needed to give Team America the resources we need to air our pro-immigration law message on the radio in Alabama in the weeks ahead, so your response is critically important to us!
Despite the best efforts of the Obama administration and the open-borders lobby, law-abiding citizens in states like Alabama are committed to taking their state … and our nation … back. It is so important for us to do all we can to help them!
Thank you, as always, for your commitment to our cause.
Your Friend,
Tom Tancredo
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