Juan Crow

Last week, the Alabama State House passed a comprehensive immigration bill patterned after the controversial Arizona law enacted last summer.  The Senate is expected to take up a similar bill later this spring.  Tough economic times generally coincide with harsh views towards immigrants, and Alabama lawmakers are rallying their constituents by making undocumented residency in the state a crime of trespassing, punishable by a year in prison.  Like the Arizona law, Alabama's version will require law enforcement officials to demand papers on those whom they deem suspicious (read: Hispanic), and the law promises a boon to Alabama's overpopulated prison system.


Birmingham News blogger John Archibald discusses the measure here, where he points out that all but one of the names co-sponsoring the bill have a common denominator: English heritage.  Perhaps this is an opportunity to learn from our governmental predecessors -- get tough on immigration now, or the immigrants will engage you in an unjust war, commit genocide against you and force you to march to Oklahoma.  If the Creeks, Choctaw, Cherokee and Chickasaw tribes had passed some tough, "don't tread on me" legislation, maybe they wouldn't be dealing with an influx of Latinos right now.

Or maybe they would.  In truth, we know the story.  And regardless of how hard the locals resisted the immigrants, the story did not change.  It's time for Alabamians to get the message: immigrants are here, and more are coming.  Alabama saw a 7.5% increase in population from 2000 to 2010 (this Interactive 2010 Census Map is really cool), but the increase in Hispanics was 145%.  No amount of unfriendly legislation is going to slow that wave, especially legislation that cannot reasonably be enforced.  While passing a law like Arizona's will serve to perhaps deter a few, it will moreso drive the current Hispanic population further into hiding.  Kids won't go to school because of their parents' immigration status.  The oppressed group will become more isolated, creating a haven for an underworld of gangs and mafias, bringing with them drug and human trafficking.

Every state has issues with immigration, and the federal government stays away from it like the plague.  Alabamians who pride themselves on their morality and hospitality need to re-examine their attitudes regarding immigration, perhaps looking to Utah as an example of how church and state can come together to create an environment that realistically deals with the challenges of immigration into the future.

For another perspective, Jake Olzen of God's Politics blogged about the burgeoning Immigrants Rights Movement here.