Letter to Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange

The Alabama state legislature passed a draconian anti-immigrant law in June, 2011, the toughest of several state laws modeled after Arizona’s SB 1070. Like the Arizona law, SB 56 authorized police to ask for proof of citizenship or immigration status during a traffic stop based on “reasonable suspicion” that the person was an undocumented immigrant. The law went even further than Arizona’s, with provisions that required public school officials to verify the immigration status of children and their parents, that made it a crime for undocumented immigrants to solicit work, and criminalized Alabamians for ordinary, everyday interactions with undocumented individuals like renting a mobile home or offering a ride.