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Don't Weaken Alabama Immigration Law!
Changes to our Current Illegal Immigration Law In a “Nutshell”:
We currently have one of the best illegal immigration law’s (HB56) in the country. However, some changes were needed to help to clarify the law and make enforcement easier.
The House passed a bill (HB658) with TOO MANY changes. The Federation of American Immigration Reform, (FAIR), a respected national immigration organization, along with other immigration attorneys, revealed HB658 would severely weaken our current law presently being debated before the United States Supreme Court. It had many loopholes and exemptions that would practically nullify our current law. However, HB658 was the vehicle the Senate was using to debate the changes to our immigration law. Sen. Scott Beason sponsored a Senate bill (SB541) that was very good; it made necessary changes which clarified and strengthened the current law. The Senate tried to “substitute” his bill (SB541) into HB658 and remove the exemptions and loopholes in HB658. However, through the political wrangling process, Sen. Beason’s bill was not kept intact like we had hoped and some negative concessions were made during the substitution process.
Despite the significant improvements made by Sen Beason’s bill (SB541) and his valiant fight to keep his bill intact, we do not support the substitution made to HB658. With the weakened E-Verify and sanctuary sections, (see below) the law will be ineffective and unenforceable; leaving Alabama worse off then when this whole process began 2-years ago. We are asking you to call/email the Senators right now (they will be voting today!) and ask them to make 2 amendments to the revised HB658 (see amendments 1 and 2 below). BUT…. if they won’t, then you want them to KILL THE BILL!! We feel it is best to leave the law alone and wait until the United States Supreme Court makes its final ruling.
1. E-Verify Section. This is a huge loophole! There is no penalty! The section no longer requires the suspension of business licenses unless the court finds the employer to have engaged in a policy or practice of violating the immigration law. Thus, an employer who knowingly hires an unauthorized alien is only required to (1) terminate the alien; (2) provide quarterly reports on all new employees, and (3) file an affidavit saying that they will not knowingly hire any more unauthorized aliens. Previously, this section required the suspension of business licenses for knowingly employing illegal aliens and was a safe harbor for employers that used E-Verify. If this is not changed, this will encourage employers to NOT enroll in E-Verify since it would be in their economic interest to ignore the law. This makes a mockery of the law! (FYI: FAIR WILL NOT SUPPORT HB658 unless this section on E-verify amended!)
E-Verify is our best means of reducing illegal immigration through attrition. The law says that ALL employers SHALL enroll in E-Verify. Yet there is no penalty for not enrolling. Please ask your senators to remove this loophole and restore the original wording in Sen. Beason’s SB541.
2. Sanctuary City Section. The firewall to ensure that Alabama would not become a sanctuary city was the ability of citizens to sue enforcement officers responsible for but who refuse to enforce the immigration law. This has been removed. Now citizens must petition DAs/AG with a specific complaint to investigate. DAs/AG can choose to investigate or not. The chances are slim that they will choose to. Examples: DAs/AG are overloaded now, as are court dockets. There are scarce resources and limited funds. Currently many murder cases don't go to trial because of these reasons. Please ask your senators to restore the original wording in Sen. Beason’s SB541.
IF The Senate does NOT make these changes then they should VOTE “NO” on HB658! Let's keep our current law strong and make any other changes AFTER the Supreme Court Rules on the law.
A special thanks to our friend, Elois Zeanah, President of the Alabama Federation of Republican Women and FAIR for their helpful and concise analysis used in this email.
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