Following a series of defeats in court, Alabama officials who backed a law to discourage illegal immigration have consented to remove some of its controversial features. Luther Strange, Alabama's Republican attorney general, signed a settlement that "bars the state from enforcing many key provisions of the law, pays $350,000 in attorney fees to immigrant rights groups that challenged it and restricts when local police can check the immigration status of suspects in custody," Daniel Vock reports for Stateline.
Provisions blocked include: requiring schools to disclose how many students and/or their parents are in the country illegally, forbidding undocumented residents to participate in business transactions, negating unauthorized immigrants' contracts, prohibiting unauthorized immigrants to look for jobs, and limiting police officers' checking the immigration status of criminal suspects, Vock writes.
Though Alabama's law has been modified, it's still in effect. Alabama businesses have to use E-Verify, a federal database, to ensure new employees are in the country legally. It also prevents unauthorized immigrants from attending public colleges and pursuing business licenses and other documents, Vock reports.
The law, House Bill 56, shared similarities with an Arizona Senate Bill 1070, which the U.S. Supreme Court rejected last year. Georgia and South Carolina have tried and failed to pass similar laws. "Today's settlement should remind legislators in both Montgomery and Washington that a person's constitutional rights may not be legislated away," said Linton Joaquin, general counsel of the National Immigration Law Center.
Provisions blocked include: requiring schools to disclose how many students and/or their parents are in the country illegally, forbidding undocumented residents to participate in business transactions, negating unauthorized immigrants' contracts, prohibiting unauthorized immigrants to look for jobs, and limiting police officers' checking the immigration status of criminal suspects, Vock writes.
Though Alabama's law has been modified, it's still in effect. Alabama businesses have to use E-Verify, a federal database, to ensure new employees are in the country legally. It also prevents unauthorized immigrants from attending public colleges and pursuing business licenses and other documents, Vock reports.
The law, House Bill 56, shared similarities with an Arizona Senate Bill 1070, which the U.S. Supreme Court rejected last year. Georgia and South Carolina have tried and failed to pass similar laws. "Today's settlement should remind legislators in both Montgomery and Washington that a person's constitutional rights may not be legislated away," said Linton Joaquin, general counsel of the National Immigration Law Center.
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