It is now legal to racially profile in Alabama. This week, HB58 was presented before a Federal Judge, who upheld certain provisions of the bill and blocked others. Alabama law enforcement officers will now have the right to question and detain anyone they suspect may be an undocumented immigrant.
Add this to the idea that Alabama’s immigration law is one of the toughest federally, then stir in the history of the state as a racially charged piece of geography and we have a problem.
The judge in question is U.S. District Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn. Blackburn blocked several parts of the law, but let stand provisions that no other judge considering these laws so far has, including provisions that give law enforcement officers unprecedented power to act as immigration agents.
Blackburn prevented undocumented immigrants from enrolling in any type of higher education, looking for a job and even from being day laborers and no business contracts entered into by undocumented workers are enforceable.
K-12 institutions are also required to track immigration statutes of their students, even as the Supreme Court has ruled that elementary and secondary education as a constitutional right. That fear will prevent parents from sending their children to school.
However, harboring an undocumented immigrant, or giving one a ride is not illegal. The big controversy remains that she gave law enforcement agents the power to question and detain anyone who they have “reasonable suspicion” to believe may be undocumented.
Immigrant and civil rights groups have argued that this provision all but legalizes racial profiling, because it’s impossible to determine a person’s immigration status on sight alone, and any inference would rely on profiling. However, human behavior is also a part of this, and Judge Blackburn did not hear evidence to convince her that human behavior inferences would be racially motivated alone. It is a good point, but is it enough?
http://www.care2.com/causes/legally-okay-to-racially-profile-in-alabama.html
