I read with dismay and sadness the Press Register’s account of the passage of the new immigration bill in the Alabama legislature. It is touted by critics and supporters alike that it is the “toughest” immigration bill to be passed in this country. I recognize that immigration is a complex issue, but this law just doesn’t feel right to me. It feels like a throw back to the Jim Crow era in which African Americans were deprived of basic civil rights. It is a giant billboard that says that if you are Latino then you’re not welcome…It in essence makes our police force and our school systems and businesses, and hospitals, even private residents, agents for the border patrol, watchdogs for these so-called illegal aliens among us, a demeaning term that makes the Latino sound less than human. The language of it is xenophobic and hateful, and the enforcement of such a law is highly impractical, for example, there are many Latino families (and yes, this bill is about the Latino community) in which some are documented and some as yet are not…children born in this country are documented, but one or both of the parents or grand parents might not be…so it is highly possible that the enforcement of this law will break up families….The experts who deal with domestic violence say that women who are undocumented as yet will never call for help from the police for fear of being arrested and deported. One legislator put it that this is a “jobs” bill; meaning that undocumented workers take jobs away from the rest of us….that’s a stretch at the least. Let’s face it, many Latinos take on jobs that many Americans don’t want… we can debate and argue the complexities, but the bottom line to me is that they are not here to threaten the American way of life, but to participate in it, enrich it….to make a better life for themselves and their families….Many of them come from abject poverty and are simply trying to survive. The real culprit in all of this is the growing global disparity of wealth….and in our backyard it is Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean that languish Lazarus-like at the American gates of wealth.
Hebrew Scripture and the Gospels and the writings of Paul teach us to welcome the stranger…and in many cases the term stranger is accompanied by the term translated as “resident alien”. In Ancient Near Eastern culture, people from different countries and ethnic backgrounds were constantly on the move because of disease, droughts and famines and economic conditions…on the move for survival’s sake…and scripture is unequivocal with respect to the taking care of the stranger, the outsider, the immigrant among us….Why so? Because scripture is also unequivocal about the claim that God loves all of humanity, not just one group, not just one people, but the nations (the “ethnes” in the Greek) of the world…and to love them means God wants dignity and well-being for them….and to know the stranger as neighbor I think means we have a better understanding as to who we are as a nation that values freedom and the opportunity for a good life.
This sort of legislation that began along the Border now is making its way like a wildfire into the interior of the country, each state having confusing nuances relative to the immigration laws of other states. My hope is that in dealing with the issues of immigration we (and I imagine the we will end up on the federal level)…that we will ask first the question: How do we best welcome our brother and sister who is an immigrant…how do we make the stranger welcome?…and yes of course there have to be laws and restrictions and the enforcement thereof….order and safety are good things….But we must as a global community be artful and gracious about this process recognizing the big picture i.e. that growing global poverty must be one informing principle in our decision making….these people, our brothers and sisters, just want a better and dignified life….Is that asking too much?
Amen.
Think of it as a jobs bill, or a stimulus package. It will require thousands more administrative assistants to process paperwork and thousands more police to enforce provisions like knowingly giving a ride to an illegal immigrant, putting Alabama citizens back to work. See? We’re all Keynesians now.
But the law raises all sorts of interesting procedural questions like this one: what if an Alabama citizen gives an illegal immigrant a ride to the bus station so that the illegal immigrant can return to his home country? Would the Alabama citizen be arrested for knowingly giving a ride to an illegal immigrant?
Also, say a motorist who speaks with a thick German accent runs out for a gallon of milk, absent-mindedly forgets their green card or visa, and rolls through a stop sign in front of a police officer who then pulls the motorist over. And then it turns out the motorist is connected in some way with the Thyssen-Krupp plant, a huge jobs-producer in our area? Would it be embarrassing to the officer or to local and state officials to harrass the motorist about not having the required documentation on their person? Would the motorist be detained on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant? How would such an incident reverberate within the T-K community? How would it reverberate in Germany?
On another note, why doesn’t Mobile’s so-called newspaper do some in-depth reporting on Kansas’s Secretary of State, Kris Kobach (R), one of the authors of the Alabama bill. They mention his name and his co-authorship, but make no attempt to explain why a high ranking official from another state was recruited, or even needed, to help draft a law for our state. Was our own Secretary of State, Beth Chapman (R), not up to the task? What about our Attorney General, “Big Luther” Strange (R)? Was he also not capable? What about the legislative leaders who sponsored the bill, like Senator Scott Beason (R) or Micky Hammon (R)? Were all of Alabama’s legislative and administrative leaders not capable of drafting a law to fit Alabama’s needs without outside help? If so, what does that say about our elected leaders? If our leaders are capable, then why would they recruit an outsider, not to consult, but to co-author the bill, in the first place?
And why would Mr. Kobach say yes? Doesn’t he have enough to do in Kansas? Evidently, there’s not much going on in Kansas, leaving Mr. Kobach with extra time to join FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) and be of counsel to the Immigration Law Reform Institute. You can probably guess where these organizations stand on immigration. But where do these organizations get their funding? If the Press-Register were to do an analysis of how these groups get funded, funding which then allows people like Mr. Kobach of Kansas to trot over to our state to help write our immigration law, would our elected leaders, and would we as citizens, be proud of what we find out?
Would it even matter?
Jim, thank you for your thoughtful and passionate response to HB56. The connection to Alabama’s Jim Crow laws is vital to understanding just how wrong and “mean” the law is. Rosa Parks knew and over time we would come to know that just as Christians have a moral duty to obey just laws, we also have a moral duty to disobey unjust laws.
It appears from George Talbot’s reporting in the Press-Register that one of the sponsors of Alabama’s immigration law, Senator Scott Beason (R), referred to African-American casino customers as “aborigines” during a discussion with fellow Republican legislators. Evidently Beason agreed to wear an FBI wire as part of the government’s probe into illegal gambling activities at VictoryLand. His comments were caught on tape and were made public last week when the transcript was released as part of the Milton McGregor trial. It’s almost too incredible to believe, so check it out for yourself by following this link to the original story:
http://blog.al.com/live/2011/06/a_machiavellian_plot_in_the_al.html.
So we’ve got a draconian immigration bill co-sponsored by a legislator who refers to black people as “aborigines.” That’s just plain racist. Or you could look at it this way: we’ve got a draconian immigration bill co-sponsored by a guy who knew he was wearing a wire and who knew that his words were being recorded, and yet he still referred to black people as “aborigines,” knowing full well that his remarks were being overheard by the feds and that the remarks stood a very good chance of becoming public in court, which they now have. That’s just ig’nant.
What’s next? A huge Confederate flag on I-65?
“Jesus wept.” John 11:35
This is personal. This is appalling. Pure bigotry. At least AL had substandard toilets and drinking fountains for ‘colored.’ Now I’m guilty of a crime if I offer a ride to a wetback. Will Canadians be stopped and asked for identification? Growing up on the TX-MEX border I had friends whose families were here before the Pilgrims. I had many friends whose parents were wetbacks. They were good neighbors and good Americans. I guess the only thing worse would be a Mexican Muslim.
Many thanks for expressing this in a common sense way. I feel this legislation is something we will regret in the future.