Posted on 11/08/2011 1:25:49 PM PST by moonshinner_09
Utility company PROHIBITING illegal immigrants from obtaining electric, gas, water or sewer service in Alabama...
A major utilities company in Alabama is now prohibiting illegal immigrants from receiving electricity, gas, water or wastewater services to heated reactions on both sides, but they're just following the law.
The Decatur Utilities company is now one of many in the state that follows the newly signed immigration law which prohibits business with illegal immigrants in the state or its subdivisions.
'We did not [originally] document or confirm whether or not they were citizens or aliens here legally,' Stephen Pirkle, Decatur business manager and chief financial officer told the Decatur 'Because of the new law, we are now going through the process to confirm that they are either a citizen or an alien here legally. If not, we will deny them service,' he added.
Section 30 of the Beason-Hammon Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act, signed into law on June 9th of this year, will make it a felony offense, encouraging businesses like Decatur Utilities, with over 30,000 customers, to check customer's citizenship before service.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
“The power companies should make it mandatory to put smart meters on homes occupied by illegals to monitor the electrical and gas usage. They end up with ten people in the house using massive electrical and gas plus end up plugging the sewar lines with massive grease. They should be charged for all of that.”
At what price freedom?
LOL!!!
No argument from me.
Thank you for that clarification.
No.
[’If you’re already a customer and you already have service with us — and there’s no discontinuation of service — we don’t have to do anything,’ Mr Pirkle however explained.]
So they only perform a check on NEW customers, and if the new customer is a legal alien they check periodically to ensure their legal status hasn’t expired.
Hopefully, citizens will tip utilities off about illegals so the utility will shut down existing customers after investigating. Otherwise, the illegals can stay forever as long as they don’t move.
I don’t really see why this was ever an issue. A utility is providing credit to its customers since billing is done after usage. Anyone providing credit should be running a credit check, which would have required an SS# and valid ID to run. Had they done that all along, they would never have had illegals as customers to begin with.
And this being 'Bama, there could be quite a few Mexicans that "disappear" overnight if they play the retaliation card.
Does the legislature grandfather current illegals in so the company cannot be held liable for selling them power?
Hopefully, citizens will tip utilities off about illegals so the utility will shut down existing customers after investigating. Otherwise, the illegals can stay forever as long as they don’t move.
If a citizen tips off the authorities that the utility has been selling services to an illegal alien then does the whistle-blower get a reward? Part of the fine the utility is liable for?
In that case we Americans need to respond 10 fold to their retaliation.
“The federal government needs to step up and enforce the law. At the border, not in the US, trying to close the barn door when the horse has left the stable.”
You make SOME sense but seem to be advocating not going after the run away horse in re to the Alabama law.
Send them to Texas!!!!!!!
We LOVE illegals here...or at least our governor does.
I don’t know of any reward system currently in place. The utility company is not liable for any existing customers as the law only requires they check new customers. So utilities are probably not going to create more work for themselves by encouraging tipsters. They served those customers in the past because they had no basis not to without engendering discrimination lawsuits. Now they have a legal basis to refuse service, but they are not going to go out of their way to cut their revenues from existing customers.
Smart landlords can take advantage of these illegals’ new difficulty in relocating, however. They can raise their rents because their current renter will have trouble getting utilities at a new place.
The law does make it a felony to assist illegals in circumventing the law, so at least you won’t have legal residents letting illegals use their name to get utilities.
“We did not [originally] document or confirm whether or not they were citizens or aliens here legally...Because of the new law, we are now going through the process to confirm that they are either a citizen or an alien here legally.”
Sounds to me like they are checking up on all of their existing customers to me.
Are they really loud and vocal ?
Not terribly loud, it’s that they really do sound like a
woman or child in pain.
That seems more ambiguous than the other statement I quoted. It can be read to mean that they are checking new customers now where they didn’t used to do that.
Yeah - I guess one could take it either way. Whether the guy is talking about “they” as in the same person (they came in last year, and now we are checking to see if they...) - or “last year we did not check if they (new customers) were legal, but now we are checking them...).
Regardless - it seems to be a pretty far-reaching law, and puts a lot of onus on the company. As I said earlier, does this now make it illegal for Home Depot to sell a leaf blower to an illegal? Perhaps it should be illegal for an illegal to do business with someone - and not vice-versa.
I believe the sections of the law that dealt with private business transactions have been held up by court challenges. Only the portion where governments are prohibited from entering into new business relationships with illegals is in force. This article happens to be about “utilities” but it so happens that in this part of the state, they are all municipal utilities, ie. government run utilities.
Portions that have been held up included landlords renting to illegals, which I just don’t understand. Any smart landlord would run a credit check and background check on someone you are entrusting your property to. An illegal alien shouldn’t be able to pass those checks, so what does that tell you ? There are a lot of stupid landlords since those 150,000 illegals are living somewhere. Even if they are collecting rent in advance, they are idiots. You trust someone with $100,000 of your property just because you’ve got $1,000 in your hot little hand ... but know nothing about them ??
“I believe the sections of the law that dealt with private business transactions have been held up by court challenges.”
Wow - so the law DID seem to extend that far.
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