The Southern Poverty Law Center today filed a federal class action lawsuit today on behalf of several aspiring college students who are denied in-state college tuition rates in Florida because they cannot prove the lawful immigration status of their parents.
A federal appeals court today blocked certain key provisions of Alabama’s anti-immigrant law while the constitutionality of the law is under determination.
South Carolina passed an extreme anti-immigrant law in 2011. The law required police to demand “papers” demonstrating citizenship or immigration status during traffic stops when they have “reasonable suspicion” that a person is an undocumented immigrant. It also criminalized everyday interactions with undocumented immigrants. The SPLC joined a coalition of civil rights groups in filing a federal class action lawsuit challenging the law as unconstitutional. A settlement reached in 2014 blocked major provisions of the law.
The Southern Poverty Law Center and a coalition of civil rights groups today launched a legal challenge to South Carolina’s anti-immigrant law, charging it is unconstitutional, invites racial profiling and interferes with federal law.
Since the Southern Poverty Law Center established a hotline last week to report issues with Alabama’s new anti-immigrant law, we have received more than 1,000 calls, illustrating clearly that the law is on the verge of creating a humanitarian crisis for immigrants in the state – regardless of their immigration status.
The Southern Poverty Law Center and the coalition of civil rights groups challenging Alabama’s extreme anti-immigrant law today filed a notice of appeal and an emergency request asking the U.S. district court to temporarily block several provisions not previously enjoined by the court’s orders of September 28, while the decision is appealed.
A federal court today blocked significant elements of Alabama’s new anti-immigrant law – the nation’s most extreme – but also left large parts in place, undermining the most fundamental American values of fairness and equality and devastating thousands across the state, including citizens, lawful immigrants and immigrants without lawful status alike.
The Southern Poverty Law Center asked members of Congress today to oppose legislation that would greatly expand one of the nation’s guestworker programs and shred protections for both guestworkers and U.S. workers.
We filed a motion for summary judgment because the sheriff’s office simply does not have the right to enforce immigration law. But since 2007, deputies have been interrogating detainees about their immigration status and recommending their deportation to federal agents.
The debt ceiling debate is consuming all of the oxygen in Washington these days, but there’s another economic issue that Congress would be wise to resolve – and soon, before more damage is done to our recovering but still brittle economy. That issue is immigration reform.
