There is a lot of talk about immigration in the United States these days and Alabama is certainly no exception. Recently, a law in Alabama was proposed where police are required to “attempt to determine the immigration status of a person who they suspect is an unauthorized alien of this country.” This law also covers some more extreme measures, such as the interrogation of children in public schools that may determine their immigration status, which an attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center has argued to be unconstitutional. As of today, the judge ruling on this case has decided to block enforcement of this immigration law and prolong the deadline- originally Thursday, September 1st– to September 26th, on the grounds that there is not enough time to address the multiple arguments being presented with regards to this law’s constitutionality.
Some of the arguments being reviewed are:
– The constitutionality to interrogate children in public schools
– The constitutionality of denying immigrants public education
– the targeting of institutions such as the church as an organization that ministers to illegal aliens
– that the federal government should control immigration enforcement, rather than the individual states
– that the enforcement of this law would inherently bring about racial profiling, particularly to Hispanics
The governor of Alabama, Robert Bentley has been fully supportive of this law since June and believes that its implementation is necessary in order to reduce illegal immigration to the state and provide equal opportunity to legal immigrants within Alabama.
What do YOU think?
