The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and a coalition of civil rights groups filed a class action lawsuit today challenging Alabama’s extreme anti-immigrant law, HB 56, passed last month. The draconian law is even more restrictive than the Arizona law it was inspired by—Arizona’s SB 1070.

The Alabama law chills children’s access to public schools by requiring school officials to verify the immigration status of children and their parents; authorizes police to demand “papers” demonstrating citizenship or immigration status during traffic stops; and criminalizes Alabamians for ordinary, everyday interactions with undocumented individuals says the suit. The lawsuit charges that the extreme law endangers public safety, invites the racial profiling of Latinos, Asians and others who appear foreign to an officer, and interferes with federal law.

The coalition filing the lawsuit includes the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Alabama, the National Immigration Law Center, the Asian Law Caucus, and the Asian American Justice Center. The law is set to take effect September 1.