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Aug 03, 2011

Alabama Diocese Fights Immigration Law

[Episcopal News Service] If the Rev. Hernan Afanador provides parishioners transportation to church or even offers ailing church members a ride to the doctor, he could be breaking Alabama law.

 

Transporting an undocumented person is a crime under the state's tough new immigration law, scheduled to go into effect Sept. 1. Fallout from House Bill 56 has already impacted Afandor's ministry as vicar of Iglesia de la Gracia, Birmingham, and as Hispanic missioner in the Diocese of Alabama, he said during a July 18 telephone interview.

 

Average Sunday attendance at La Gracia was about 100 before Republican Governor Robert Bentley signed the bill into law June 9. In little more than a month, it has dropped by three-fourths, to about 25 and affected everyone, not just the undocumented, he said.

 

"People are already scared to be in public or to be together in places like church or the supermarket. Already, there is a lot of fear, and a lot of people have left the state, because this law is so aggressive," he added.

 

Like Arizona's controversial and polarizing SB1070, the Alabama measure aims to identify, prosecute and deport undocumented persons. It empowers law enforcement officials to check the immigration status of people they lawfully stop and whom they suspect are in the country illegally and mandates that prospective employers use E-verify, the U.S. government's electronic verification system for employers to avoid hiring undocumented workers. 

 

But the Alabama law goes further. It is unique in requiring schools to determine, eitherthrough a review of birth certificates or sworn affidavit, the legal residency status of students.

 

Opponents of both laws have called them invitations to harass citizens. On May 26 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in a 5-3 vote an earlier Arizona law that allowed the state the right to deny a business license to employers who repeatedly hire undocumented workers. The ruling set the stage for a high court showdown possibly later this year over SB1070, whose most controversial parts have been blocked in lower courts.

 

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