Following the lead of Arizona, Georgia and Alabama, Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed HB 497 (titled “Utah Illegal Immigration Enforcement Act”) into law in March and it went into effect in May 2011.

While some Utah lawmakers have marketed as more human than other copy-cat laws, many of HB 497’s provisions are just as harsh as those of its predecessors. For example, the law requires police to verify the immigration status of people arrested class B or C misdemeanors (including minor offenses like littering, jaywalking and traffic violations); prohibits any policy limiting state and local agencies from assisting the federal government in the enforcement of federal immigration law; and makes it a third degree felony to encourage or induce any immigrant to come, enter, or reside in a the state illegally.

The DOJ filed suit on the grounds that HB 497 is unconstitutional and incites racial profile U.S. District Court Judge Clark Waddoups will hold a hearing on February 17 on a possible permanent injunction against the laws. Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff responded on Tuesday by saying “Obviously, those who filed these briefs haven’t read our law or understand how different our law is,” but also said that some provisions might be amended to avoid the DOJ lawsuit.

Richard Andre is a policy associate for Americas Society/Council of the Americas.

A series of developments in Alabama have helped convince many of the state’s residents, including some lawmakers that strongly supported the bill at passage, that HB 56’s provisions may be too harsh and difficult to enforce. Perhaps the most salient worry is that the law’s effect on the immigrant labor force might hurt Alabama’s business environment, which like many other states, is still reeling from the recession.

One of the main opponents of HB 56 is One Family, One Alabama, a movement that kicked off in mid-November at Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, a landmark of the U.S. civil rights movement. Policy makers such as Representative Luis V. Gutierrez, Congressional Hispanic Caucus Immigration Task Force Chair and Mayor William Bell attended the launch, among others. The movement is supported by the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice and the National Conference on Civil and Human Rights and is a response to the unintended consequences of the bill.

Only a few days after the launch of One Family, One Obama, one of these unintended consequences was laid bare. A German manager of Mercedes-Benz was arrested in Alabama for not having his driver’s license as mandated by HB 56. The Mercedes-Benz manager was released after an associate turned his passport, visa, and German driver’s license in to the authorities. Before HB 56, not carrying a driver’s license would result in nothing more than a citation.

More Alabama lawmakers like Republican Senator Gerald Dial are pushing to amend HB 56 or scrap it altogether. Senator Jabo Waggoner, chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, said “having to prove legal residence for every transaction with state or local government, including renewing a driver’s license, is too cumbersome. Criminalizing giving charitable aid to undocumented immigrants goes too far.”

Alabama’s private sector has been vocal in its opposition to HB 56 and its negative economic impact. Brian Hilson, Chief Executive of the BBA, has said that HB 56 makes Alabama less attractive for investment compared to other states without this type of law. His comments are in line with those of Professor Samuel Addy from the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Alabama who said that HB 56 will reduce the state’s economy by $40 million.

Among the least popular provisions of HB 56 are the those that requires proof of legal residence or citizenship for every transaction with the government; the obligation for professional licensing boards in the state to verify the status of all licensees; and the fact that schools must check the documented status of students.

As Birmingham’s city attorney Thomas Bentley said, proving citizenship for all transactions “applies to almost everything that we do.” Section 30 of HB 56 reads, “any person entering into a business transaction or attempting to enter into a business transaction with this state or a political subdivision of this state shall be required to demonstrate his or her United States citizenship, or if he or she is an alien, his or her lawful presence in the United States to the person conducting the business transaction on behalf of this state or a political subdivision of this state.” If this were to be interpreted to the letter, the state of Alabama could legally deny water, sanitation and any other public service to undocumented immigrants.

There are plenty of reasons to amend HB 56 so that its provisions are more humane and actually enforceable. But the question is: how far will the Alabama State legislature go to tone down the bill, while maintaining its essence, as Governor Bentley says. More importantly, if this bill is amended, what precedent will this set for Arizona, Georgia and other states and cities that have passed controversial immigration legislation? We’ll have to wait and see.

Lina Salazar a guest blogger for the Hispanic Integration Hub and for AmericasQuarterly.org, and a contributing writer for Americas Quarterly. Richard Andre is a policy associate for Americas Society/Council of the Americas.

Creating a friendly environment for entrepreneurs, in this case immigrant entrepreneurs, is a way to promote innovation, growth, and new businesses. Last September, Mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg, long-time supporter of comprehensive immigration reform, stressed the economic importance of having a welcoming visa system that attracts and retains entrepreneurs. Making reference to the other English-speaking countries, Mayor Bloomberg said competing nations “have visa programs designed to attract entrepreneurs who come to create jobs. All these countries know that smart visa policies alone can’t guarantee that their economies will successfully weather every economic storm. But they do know that there’s no chance they’ll stay competitive unless they can attract top talent from around the world, and that certainly goes for the United States.”

Unfortunately, entrepreneurs coming to the U.S. to take advantage of the business infrastructure face several challenges in getting an appropriate visa to stay in the country, invest, and start a company. The most common visas are treaty investor (E-2), intracompany transferee (L1-A), temporary professional worker (H1-B) and immigrant investor (EB-5) or “one million dollar visa.” The last requires the investor to invest $1 million in the U.S. in order to get a green card. In many cases, the visa application processes can take several years and end up being quite expensive (around $20,000), all of which discourages innovators and redirect them to other countries.

Some legislators have proposed bills that attempt to simplify the visa program’s complexities. Jared Polis introduced the Employment Benefit Act (HR4259) in 2009, which aims to reform the “$1 million dollar visa” and create a Startup Visa in order to make it easier for immigrant entrepreneurs to start a business in the US. This bill was complemented by the Startup Visa Act of 2010 authored by senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Richard Lugar (R-IN). One year later, Kerry, Lugar and Mark Udall (D-CO) introduced the revised Startup Visa Act of 2011 (HR1114) which would give a two-year visa to immigrant entrepreneurs who get a U.S. investor to invest $100,000 or more in their startup (down from the original $1 million). Additionally, students with advanced degrees and H1-Bs would be included in the pool of potential applicants.

The Startup Visa Movement was founded in 2010 by a number of investors and entrepreneurs to lobby Congress to pass the Startup Visa Act. Now consisting of over 100 America venture capitalists and investors, the Startup Movement says the bill will “make it easier for entrepreneurs to come to the U.S., start new businesses, and most importantly create more jobs.”

While domestic unemployment remains around 9 percent, entrepreneurs across the globe are awaiting revised visa legislation to be able to come to the U.S., start their business and create jobs. It may be time the U.S. recognized the opportunity at its doorstep.

Lina Salazar works in the policy department at Americas Society/Council of the Americas.

Information obtained by ARC through the Freedom of Information Act showed that during the first six months of 2011, 46,000 parents of U.S.-citizen children were removed from the country—almost half the number of deported parents of U.S.-citizen children that were deported over a 10 year period, between 1997 and 2007. Today, 14.6 million people in the U.S. live in a mixed-status home where at least one member of the family is undocumented and is at risk of being detained and deported.

According to Growing Up in the Shadows: The Developmental Implications of Unauthorized Status, published in the Harvard Educational Review, 41 percent of mixed-status households have one documented parent and the other undocumented; 39 percent have two undocumented parents; and 20 percent are headed by a single undocumented parent.

Seth Freed Wessler, author of Shattered Families, highlights the “troubling collateral effect of these deportations: Thousands of children enter the child welfare system and are often stuck there.” Freed, writing for the Color Lines blog, explains that “deportation too often leads to the seamless termination of parental rights. In jurisdictions around the country, child welfare departments and children’s attorneys have successfully argued that it is in a child’s best interest to remain in the U.S. rather than join their parents in another country.” Child welfare departments are required by law to reunite families after the parent or parents have been detained, but once parents are deported these institutions rarely make efforts to do so.

Ross Feinstein from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the agency’s June 2010 Civil Enforcement Priorities memo specified that no individuals who are the primary caretakers of children should be detained. But the often lengthy process of detention and deportation—which presents several obstacles that undermine proper contact between detained parents and their children such as no access to juvenile court hearings, detainees lacking legal representation, and detention centers far from home—can prevent any communication between detained parents and the children, minimizing the likelihood that they will be reunited.

Lina Salazar works in the policy department at Americas Society/Council of the Americas.

Civil rights advocacy groups argue that Muñoz’ comments “racially and ethnically profile Latinos.” Felipe Mattos of Presente.org, a national organization advocating for Latino communities in the U.S., called on Muñoz to step down and to “stop defending the indefensible S-COMM and side once again with her community in denouncing it.”

Secure Communities is also often criticized for its lack of accuracy in identifying individuals, and the level of secrecy with which the program is implemented. The Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Day Labor Organizing Network (NDLON) and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law all filed a suit against ICE to divulge more information on S-COMM through the Freedom of Information Act.

According to “Secure Communities by the Numbers: An Analysis of Demographics and Due Process”, a study done by the Warren Institute at UC Berkeley School of Law, the S-COMM program raises several concerns about civil rights violations of citizens and non-citizens, alike. The report shows that only 52 percent of individuals arrested through the program have a hearing before an immigration judge. Also, 39 percent of individuals detained have a spouse or child who is a U.S. citizen, which means the program is actively separating families.

Muñoz’ comments in support of the controversial Secure Communities will complicate President Obama’s efforts to rally Hispanic voters for his 2012 reelection bid. The president must handle this issue with care, especially given that U.S. immigration policy has eclipsed the economy and jobs as the top issue for Hispanic voters, according to a poll conducted by the independent research firm Latino Decisions.

Lina Salazar works in the policy department at Americas Society/Council of the Americas.

Restrictive ordinances, the white paper shows, do have a negative impact on the number of employees when compared to cities that issued and implemented non-restrictive ordinances. For more information on the cities, the ordinances, the results, and a summary of the public reception click here.

Section 28 of HB 56 orders elementary and secondary schools in Alabama to determine “whether the student enrolling in public school was born outside the jurisdiction of the United States or is the child of an alien not lawfully present in the United States.” Fearing that section 28 facilitate deportations, thousands of parents kept their children home on last Friday and more than five percent of the 1,435 Hispanic students in the state didn’t show up for class.

Local authorities are worried about this fear will provoke an exodus of Hispanic students and their families out of Alabama. Casey Wardynski, the superintendent at Huntsville—where 207 students were marked absent after Judge Blackburn’s ruling—recorded and interview in Spanish for ETV on September 29. He reassured Hispanic parents that they could send their kids back to school. “We are ready to educate these kids,” he said.

The lack of clarity about the intentions of the law is serious. According HB 56’s language, information compiled from schools will only be used for only statistical purposes. Reports sent by school authorities will be used to determine the number of “aliens believed to be unlawfully present in the United States enrolled at all primary and secondary public schools,” the law says. Students won’t be banned from enrolling in school or attending classes. As the Huntsville City Schools website announces, “no student will be denied enrollment or admission to school due to a failure to provide the birth certificate or other supplemental documentation.”

Notwithstanding the efforts made by local governments to assuage fears, Hispanics in Alabama feel vulnerable. Parents fear their immigration status will be tracked with the new law. “They are going to investigate us through our children,” said Maria Morales, an undocumented immigrant living in Montgomery. The question that remains is whether Alabama’s major industries—many of which rely heavily on immigrant labor—will suffer because of this law. In Albertville and Russellville, two cities central to Alabama’s $5 million a year poultry industry, there is more at stake than school attendance.

And it’s not just schools that are feeling the consequences of HB 56. It also authorizes local law enforcement officials to stop and detain any person suspected of being in the country with no authorization and nullifies contracts signed with undocumented immigrants. Farmers, contractors and home builders have felt the economic effects of not having labor to run their businesses. Even documented immigrants are leaving as a result of the mixed status of families. According to a study published in the Harvard Educational Review on the developmental effects of unauthorized status, 41 percent of households with U.S-born children have one documented parent and the other undocumented. In 39 percent of the cases both lack a legal visa status. The decision to leave the workplace always depends on weakest link within the family.

Although the U.S. Department of Justice appealed Blackburn’s decision on Friday, the law is now in place and the economic and social impact is growing. According to State Senator Arthur Orr believes “it’s going to take some time for the local labor pool to develop again.”

Lina Salazar works in the policy department at Americas Society/Council of the Americas.

In August, the Department of Justice filed a suit against HB 56 at the District Court of the Northern District of Alabama on the basis of its unconstitutionality. In announcing the suit, Attorney General Eric Holder highlighted that “that setting immigration policy and enforcing immigration laws is a national responsibility that cannot be addressed through a patchwork of state immigration laws.” The law was also challenged by countries like Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia, and civil rights organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

Alabama’s HB 56 provisions are more severe than those of other copycat laws and the bill that set off this most recent wave of anti-immigrant legislation, SB 1070. With yesterday’s ruling, state law enforcement officials can stop and detain any person suspected of being in the country without authorization and schools are now required to verify the immigration status of students. Judge Blackburn also considered constitutional the sections that nullify contracts signed with undocumented immigrants and that makes it a felony for unauthorized immigrants to apply for official documentation.

The sections that were struck down pertain to labor law including the provisions preventing unauthorized immigrants from seeking work as an employee or independent contractor and criminalizing those who assist the undocumented.

In a press release, Mary Bauer, from the SPLC, said on Wednesday the decision “not only places Alabama on the wrong side of history but also demonstrates that the rights and freedoms so fundamental to our nation and its history can be manipulated by hate and political agendas—at least for a time.” The SPLC, ACLU, the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), and the coalition of civil rights groups challenging the law announced they will appeal yesterday’s decision.

In-state tuition fees in Rhode Island are markedly lower than out-of-state fees. At the University of Rhode Island, for example, out-of-state tuition is $27,262, compared to the $10,556 that in-state students pay; at Rhode Island College and the Community College of Rhode Island, the numbers are $16,878 and $6,986, and $9,792 and $3,652, respectively. To be eligible, students who immigrated to the U.S. illegally must have attended high school in Rhode Island for at least three years, graduated or obtained an equivalent degree, and signed an affidavit saying they will pursue citizenship as soon as possible.

Rhode Island joins 12 other U.S. states—including Texas—in enacting provisions that allow undocumented immigrant students to pay some form of reduced tuition. It is the only one, however, to have done so without recurring to the state legislature, which failed to take action on the matter for six years. Independent Governor Lincoln Chafee urged the board to pass the measure, writing in a letter on Sunday, “This policy change will improve the intellectual and culture life of Rhode Island while strengthening our workforce and helping our economy.”

The issue has gained increasing public and national attention in the past year. Last December, the House of Representatives passed the DREAM Act, which would have provided undocumented immigrants brought into the U.S. as children with temporary residency status and a path to citizenship if they were willing to enroll in higher education or join the military. The measure, however, died in the Senate.

More recently, Texas Governor Rick Perry has been criticized in Republican presidential debates and on the campaign trail for having signed similar legislation into law in 2001. He has defended his stance on the issue, however, saying “We need to be educating these children because they will become a drag on our society.”

Nina Agrawal is a policy associate at Americas Society and Council of the Americas.

The work of Soto and Conexión Americas also has been highlighted as part of AS/COA’s Hispanic Integration and Immigration Initiative and in AS/COA’s working paper Economic Opportunity and Integration: Nashville’s Hispanic and Business Communities

Renata Soto co-founded Conexión Americas in 2002 to address the challenges and opportunities created by the immigration of Latino families to Tennessee. The organization promotes the social, economic, and civic advancement of Latino families. Recently, she was appointed to the board of directors of the National Council of La Raza, the largest national Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States.

As part of the award, Soto will receive a $2,000 donation that she has chosen to give to Conexión Americas. In reflecting on the recognition, Soto highlighted Conexión Américas work: “Every year, more than 2,500 low-income Latinos and their families turn to our nonprofit organization for help to learn English, to buy a home—or to keep that treasured asset in these tough economic times—, to start or grow a small business, or to see their children succeed in school and be the first in the family to graduate from high school.”

Among the 32 recipients of this award is Giants honoree Lillian Rodríguez López of the Hispanic Federation, who received the acknowledgment on September 15 in Washington DC. The NFL celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month during the third week of the 2011 season.