The state of Alabama has filed a response to the multitude of lawsuits against its new immigration law, H.B. 56. In its filing, consisting of 159 pages, the state asserts that its new law is cooperative in nature with federal immigration law and wholeheartedly denies the law is in anyway discriminatory.
The new law enacted in June would affect virtually every aspect of an unauthorized immigrant’s daily life, from employment to housing to transportation to entering into and enforcing contracts to going to school.
Alabama’s H.B. 56 goes further than Arizona’s controversial S.B. 1070 in that school administrators are being asked to check how many students are registering without birth certificates, hence the immigration status of their students. The law doesn’t mandate that they turn students away if they are undocumented. The state justified the need to check immigration status as a fiscal policy matter, needing to determine the impact illegal aliens are having on its education budget.
The law is set to go into effect on September 1st unless Alabama’s court issues an injunction blocking it. A hearing before Chief U.S. District Judge Sharon Blackburn is set for August 24th.
