The Georgia and Alabama Anti-Immigration Laws
The Georgia and Alabama Anti-Immigration Laws
The courts alone won’t beat new, regressive legislation in these two states. Without a broader response such copycat of Arizona’s SB 1070 will continue to spread.
As draconian immigration bills pass state houses, it’s comforting to know that we have the courts. Arizona’s SB 1070 has been rebuffed twice in federal court, and Alabama and Georgia’s copycat laws in Alabama (HB 56) and Georgia (HB 87) will face similar legal challenges. But while the courts are critical for protecting minority rights, the judiciary alone cannot protect our country from an anti-immigrant offensive.
Anti-immigration advocates are working hard to spread these laws further and make them stick in court. Pro-immigrant advocates and allies around the country must thus muster a strong response to break their momentum.
Alabama’s HB 56 and Georgia’s HB 87 encapsulate all that’s wrong with state legislative efforts. Among other things, they empower local police officers to check the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being an unauthorized immigrant (Alabama) or breaking the law (Georgia), and mandate that businesses use a federal electronic verification system (E-Verify) still in its pilot phase or risk losing their licenses (Alabama and Georgia).
Read the full text of the article at AmericasQuarterly.org.
Daniel Altschuler has written extensively on Central American politics and U.S. immigration politics for publications including The Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy, The Nation, CNN, and Dissent. He is a contributing blogger to AQ Online and holds a doctorate in politics from the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. To read more of his writing, visit danielaltschuler.com.
