Alabama's Shame

A family goes 40 days without running water
because their “papers” are not in order.

A health clinic refuses to treat a young girl due
to her immigration status. Days later, she
undergoes emergency surgery.

A man brandishes a gun to day laborers,
then refuses to pay for their work.

A Latina born and raised in the U.S. discovers
she’s suddenly regarded with suspicion — even
enduring taunts of “Go back to Mexico.”

These are just a few of the stories told by Latinos who are living under the
cloud of Alabama’s newly enacted anti-immigrant law, HB 56.
Like the Arizona law it was modeled after, Alabama’s law grants police
the authority to demand “papers” demonstrating citizenship or legal status
during routine traffic stops. But it does much more.

In Alabama, where undocumented immigrants comprise just 2.5 percent
of the population, lawmakers added a slew of cruel provisions designed to
create a law that, in the words of a key sponsor, “attacks every aspect” of an
undocumented immigrant’s life.

The result was the harshest anti-immigrant law in the nation—a law that
virtually guarantees racial profiling, discrimination and harassment against
all Latinos in Alabama. HB 56 attacks not only “every aspect” of an immigrant’s
life in Alabama—but also basic human dignity and our most fundamental
ideals as a nation.



READ THE FULL STUDY BY THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER