Demonstrators denounce Alabama illegal immigration law

About 100 demonstrators gathered outside the Alabama state Capitol in Montgomery to call for passage of the DREAM Act and to protest the state’s new anti-illegal immigration law, widely regarded as the toughest state law crafted to combat illegal immigration.

Illegal immigration has been a volatile topic in Alabama since the legislation known as HB 56 was signed into law by Republican Gov. Robert J. Bentley in June. Anecdotal evidence suggestions that many illegal immigrants have fled the state. The demonstrators took a far different approach Tuesday.

Eleven protesters sat down in the middle of a street in hopes of blocking traffic. The location for their sit-in protest: across from the Capitol and the first White House of the Confederacy. The effect on motorists was minimal. Police had already sealed off the street a block away and were rerouting traffic elsewhere.

Two more demonstrators staged a sit-in on the floor of the lobby at the Alabama State House.

In September a federal judge upheld some portions of the law, but temporarily stayed others pending further review in the courts. For example, the judge blocked a section that would have barred illegal immigrants from enrolling in public colleges and universities.

But the 115-page ruling by U.S. District Judge Sharon Blackburn also upheld a controversial section that requires police to check the residency status of suspected illegal immigrants during traffic stops.

On Tuesday, rows of police officers watched the protest. They had not taken action by midafternoon. The protesters said they expected to be arrested at some point.

See...........FLYNT: I am equating those two. This is just mean-spirited. This is – this is finding the most vulnerable people within a society, people who can't vote, most of them are women and children. They have no political power. And so in a sense it's like the blacks in 1963 who could not vote in Alabama.

SNOW: The Sanchezs agree. They feel like Alabama blacks of the Jim Crow era. And as in 1963, Alabama and the federal government are at odds over a racially charged issue. The woman who owns this bakery, she said the men who did this are racists. She was talking about you, sir.

BENTLEY: Well, that's – I am certainly not racist. I am not racist. In fact, that's insulting to anyone to think that I would be racist. I love everyone.

SNOW: The Governor says Alabama had to pass its law because the federal government wasn't enforcing its own laws on immigration. Can you understand, sir, how this looks to people outside of Alabama?

BENTLEY: I can.

SNOW: People think about Alabama and they think about the past, unfortunately.

BENTLEY: Well, but they shouldn't link it. In the '50s and '60s, the federal government was trying to get Alabama to obey the Constitution. They were right and we were wrong in the South. They were trying to get us to obey the law. Today what we're trying to do is we're trying to get the federal government to obey the law. So it's just the opposite.

SNOW: The day after the immigration law took effect, the Sanchezs' daughter tried to carry on as she normally would, boarding the bus for school. From the bus, she sent us a text message saying that the driver had snapped "You're Mexicans, you're going to have to leave." Maria and Jose Sanchez were trying to get over the shock, as we walked through their neighborhood, already abandoned by many residents.

MRS. SANCHEZ: I don't know where to go, what's going to follow this.

SNOW: What are you going to do, do you know?

MRS. SANCHEZ: We don't know. We just know we're going to go, but we have no idea where. One day, I'll be back with my papers, I promise it. If I came in through the back door before, I'll come in through the front door next time.

SNOW: But for the Sanchez family and others who came to this country illegally, that may be an unrealistic dream. And many won't even try to return.

JENKINS: Some of them said if Alabama didn't want them, then they're taking their whole family. They made it perfectly clear, we won't be back. And I believe them.

WILLIAMS: Kate Snow, we said at the top of the evening, this was getting ugly and it is. And let's all agree that farming is some of the hardest, most back-breaking, honest work in this country. And let's just cut to the economics of it. Aside from the human toll, am I correct in guessing that when more crops end up on the ground rotting and perhaps prices are affected and availability, that then more attention will be focused on this?

SNOW: Perhaps. And in the short term that's certainly true. The people in northern Alabama who love those Chandler Mountain tomatoes, they can't get those at the farmer's market right now. They're getting Tennessee tomatoes instead. However, the farmers did say to us that they will adjust, they'll have to. They'll probably have to plant more row crops coming in the spring because a lot of this law starts to really take effect come January 1st. The employment provisions, which by the way say that not only can you not hire someone who doesn't have the proper documentation, but you have to check every one of your existing employees. If you have more than one employee, you have to check your staff. If you want to hire your mother, you've got to check her paperwork and make sure, through E-verify system, verification system, that she's legit.

WILLIAMS: And more on the web of all those interviews you conducted.

SNOW: Including the Governor, who spoke with us at length, his first television interview on the subject. So there's a lot more of that on our website.

WILLIAMS: Powerful piece of work. Kate Snow, thanks for coming back.

This is what illegals think of Americans who will not bow down to their demands.

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