Alabama passes harsh law restricting immigrant rights

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SOCIALIST ACTION NOVEMBER 2011 11 Following in the footsteps of states like Arizona, Georgia, Utah, and Indiana, Alabama has become the fifth state to pass harsh anti-immigrant laws within the last year. HB 56, also known as the Beason-Ham­ mon Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act, was passed into law on June 9. However, Alabama is the first state where some of the worst provisions of this legislation have actually gone into effect.

HB 56 is a law modeled after Arizona’s notorious SB 1070, which sparked a nationwide resistance and economic boycott in 2010, costing the Arizona tourist industry an estimated $100 million. Before HB 56 was scheduled to take effect on Sept. 1, the Department of Justice issued a challenge to the law, which has been widely recognized as the harshest state immigration law on the books.

On Sept. 28, U.S. District Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn returned her ruling on the controversial law. Judge Blackburn blocked certain parts of HB 56, including a provision that would have made it illegal for undocumented immigrants to enroll in state col­ leges and universities, provisions that criminalized day laborers’ and undocumented immigrants’ at­ tempts to look for and get work, and a provision that would have made it illegal to give a ride to or harbor an undocumented person.

However, Judge Blackburn also upheld some of the worst sections of HB 56, arguing that states have the right to enact their own immigration laws covering areas overlooked by federal law, an unusual decision. Blackburn refused to enjoin one of the harshest parts of the law, a provision that gives police and other law enforcement agents the power to detain and question anyone whom they have a “reasonable suspicion” may be undocumented.

This is the first time that such a provision, which is widely acknowledged to promote the use of racial pro­ filing among police officers and other agents, has been allowed to stand. Blackburn also let stand provisions of the law that require all K-12 schools in Alabama to track the immigration status of their students, and that make any business contract entered into with an undocumented person null and void.

“Today is a dark day for Alabama,” Mary Bauer, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s legal director, said in a statement. “This 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 politi­ cal agendas—at least for a time.”

Laws such as SB 1070 and HB 56 are part of a wider philosophy known as “attrition through enforcement.” This strategy was the brainchild of the Center for Im­ migration Studies (CIS), which claims to be an impar­ tial research organization but which is actually associ­ ated with FAIR, the oldest and largest anti-immigrant organization in the United States. FAIR and its asso­ ciates are often quoted in the mainstream press. Its directors often testify in Congress, and its ideas have often been accepted by politicians on both sides of the aisle.

“Attrition through enforcement” is essentially the idea that the immigrant population is largely made up of dangerous drug smugglers and criminals who are here to “steal” Americans’ jobs. They pose a “security risk” to our nation and must be dealt with accordingly. This idea serves to foster a feeling of anti-immigrant xenophobia in the general population and has often been used to justify the use of extremely harsh mea­ ... 15-O (continued from page 8: “15-O: A day of global indignation”) of action, the local, the national and international, is now much stronger. The link between the local and global, the concrete and general is very direct and clear. With the echoes of dem­ onstrations in the Arab world, 15-M broke out as a protest in the Spanish State with dem­ onstrations in several cities. It quickly dispersed geographical­ ly to an endless number of neigh­ borhoods and districts of the big cities. The neighborhood assem­ blies that emerged strengthened the feeling of being part of a general movement. Its activity localized global claims and goals of the movement and globalized specific problems. There is a re­ turn ticket from the neighbor­ hood to 15-O and vice-versa.

Since its outbreak the move­ ment has resulted in our country in a strong process of re-politi­ cization of society and a revival of interest in collective affairs. The indignant tide has not yet achieved enough consistency to provoke a change of course and paradigm, but it has resulted in an unprecedented challenge to a very sickly neoliberalism of ail­ ing legitimacy, which attempts to socialize the cost of the cri­ sis, something which until a few months ago seemed incontro­ vertible.

The route that runs from 15-M to 15-O has sent a message of hope in collective ability to influ­ ence the grim course of human­ ity. Indignation is not in vain; it is precisely, as the philosopher Daniel Bensaïd said, “the oppo­ site of habit and resignation.” n Esther Vivas and Josep María Antentas are editorial board members of the magazine Vien­ to Sur, published in the Spanish state. sures against undocumented immigrants.

Laws such as HB 56 and SB 1070 and ICE Access programs such as Secure Communities are meant to make life so difficult for immigrants that they live in a constant state of fear. This makes it easier for employ­ ers to control and exploit an already vulnerable immi­ grant workforce, and it makes it even harder for immi­ grant workers to stand up for their rights. In this light, it is interesting to note that Judge Blackburn chose to enjoin the provisions of HB 56 that would have made it illegal for undocumented immigrants to look for or accept work.

Since HB 56 has gone into effect, there have been reports of large numbers of immigrants pulling their children out of school or leaving the state; with no one to harvest them, crops have been rotting in the fields. According to one report, 50 Alabama farmers recently met with three legislators to beg them to make emer­ gency changes to the law, citing the fact that they could lose millions of dollars worth of crops if there is no one to pick them. Meanwhile, the fear in the immi­ grant community continues to grow and spread in the weeks following its enactment.

Since HB 56 took effect, a coalition of civil rights groups including the ACLU, the National Immigration Law Center, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama filed an emer­ gency request with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to block some of the harshest provisions of the law from going into effect.

On Oct. 14, the appeals court granted an emergency stay of two of the most severe provisions of the law. At least temporarily, public schools in the state will not be allowed to track the immigration status of their ... Socialism (continued from page 6: “Occupy movement goals: Socialist revolution or capitalist reforms?”) majority to challenge the rulers for power. To envision such a massive social transformation is impossible without the direct involvement of working people acting as a conscious class alternative to the present reactionary and mi­ nority social order.

It is no coincidence that the Egyptian people’s removal of the hated Hosni Mubarak dictator­ ship, beginning with the massive assemblies at Tahrir Square, served to inspire the original OWS activists in the U.S. But Mubarak’s forced departure was only the beginning of an ongo­ ing revolutionary process. Egyptian capital­ ism, however discredited, remains in place and along with it a military regime that still rules with terror and has failed in virtually every respect to substantially change the lives of the Egyptian people.

The dictatorship of capital also remains in Tunisia and ever more so in Libya, where U.S./ NATO military forces exchanged their previ­ ously favored Gadhafi dictatorship with anoth­ er, even more intimately tied to imperialism. None of the deep social problems plaguing those countries will be solved short of a social­ Tamika Moore / Birmingham News / AP (Above) NAACP-sponsored community forum on HB56, held in Birmingham, Ala., on Oct. 13.

students, and it will no longer be considered a crime for a person not to be carrying proof of their immigra­ tion status with them. However, with provisions such as the one allowing law enforcement agents to ques­ tion people regarding their status still in effect, many predict that it is likely that this issue will eventually reach the Supreme Court.

HB 56 is only the tip of the iceberg, and it is clear that more states will soon follow suit with similar laws. With a philosophy like “attrition through enforce­ ment” in play, more than a legal injunction is needed to stop this most recent wave of anti-immigrant leg­ islation. However, local community organizing groups like the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice, Ala­ bama Dreamers for the Future, and many different lo­ cal churches have observed an increasing outpouring of regional and national support for the movement against HB 56 in Alabama.

“What’s happening is a continuing growth of the civil rights movement,” said Scott Douglas, director of the Greater Birmingham Ministries. “Back then [dur­ ing the heyday of the civil rights movement] it was people in the black church [who were] involved, and the white church was silent. This time, there are black churches, brown churches and white churches saying ‘not in our names.’”

While no official boycott of Alabama or similar longterm organizing strategy has yet been announced, it is this kind of solidarity across artificially constructed borders and racial lines that will eventually help de­ feat HB 56 and other anti-immigrant laws. n List revolution.

History has demonstrated that the construc­ tion of a mass revolutionary socialist party, rooted in the struggles of the masses every­ where and dedicated to the total re-organiza­ tion of society to establish working-class pow­ er, is a prerequisite to any successful challenge to the capitalist order.

In the United States, Socialist Action strives to be part of the critical process of building such a revolutionary socialist party. Socialist Action’s “Workers’ Action Program to Fight the Crisis” (see page 2 for an abbreviated version) is aimed at mobilizing millions around specific and realistic demands to challenge the capital­ ist offensive and, in time, the capitalist order itself.

Revolution is no abstract or unattainable perspective. It lives and grows in the unity and clarity of purpose of those who are driven by the system itself to become the system’s grave­ diggers.

From its extremely modest beginnings, the Occupy movement has fundamentally altered the political dialogue in the U.S. It has opened the door wider than in any time in recent mem­ ory for the kinds of discussion, debate, and ac­ tions that are essential to coalescing the mass forces to put this rapidly degenerating capital­ ist beast out of business forever. n

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Adil Bradlow / AP