When students at Foley Elementary School in Alabama arrived for class one morning in late September, many of the Latino students were crying. It was the first day that portions of Alabama’s anti-immigrant law were in effect.
The Southern Poverty Law Center and other civil rights groups asked a federal judge today to block South Carolina’s anti-immigrant law from taking effect on Jan. 1 because it is unconstitutional, interferes with federal laws and would cause great harm in the state.
A polarized Congress seems unlikely to come to grips with the nation’s immigration issues in a comprehensive way any time soon, even as states like Alabama, Arizona and Georgia enact their own, unconstitutional laws to punish undocumented immigrants. Meanwhile, though, there is one federal enforcement proposal being floated that will do far more harm than good – by requiring prison time for virtually all immigration offenses.
The Southern Poverty Law Center urged the Department of Homeland Security today to end raids by federal immigration agents that have terrorized north Alabama families and that undermine federal efforts to protect the civil rights of the state’s Latino community in the wake of the state’s harsh new anti-immigrant law.
In Jacksonville, Fla., 12-year-old Cristian Fernandez is facing charges of homicide and aggravated child abuse in the adult criminal justice system. If convicted, Cristian will receive the mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Culminating a three-year investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a scathing report finding that Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office has committed a wide range of federal civil rights violations as part of a pattern of unconstitutional racial profiling and discrimination aimed at Latinos.
The SPLC will partner with the Native American Disability Law Center in Farmington, N.M., and the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County in West Palm Beach, Fla., as part of a campaign to keep children in school and out of the juvenile justice system.
The most damning proof that Alabama’s anti-immigrant law was born of xenophobia and vile stereotypes comes straight from the mouths of the lawmakers behind it.
Every single day, when students walk into school in Birmingham, Ala., they face the threat of being sprayed with pepper spray. In this school system, pepper spray is routinely used as punishment by police officers stationed in schools.
A federal judge today temporarily blocked a provision of Alabama’s notorious anti-immigrant law that threatened to push families out of their homes if they couldn’t prove their lawful status.
