When I was a child, some of the most violent film footage of the Civil Rights battles came out of Alabama. I remember looking on in horror as demonstrating blacks were knocked down with fire houses and dogs were sicced on them. These actions were ordered by the Birmingham Commissioner of Public Safety, Bull Connor. Men, women and children were the object of the hoses and the dogs. These were horrifying scenes, especially for children. I will never hear the word Alabama that I don’t think of the images branded in my mind.
These kinds of enforcement behaviors do not exist in a vacuum. Alabama will always wear the shame of those firehoses and police dogs. They will always have the tragedy of Birmingham Sunday in someone’s memory, as long as any of us alive during that time are still on this earth. Alabama needs to move away from its history of divisiveness.
Unfortunately, that is not happening. Recently enacted laws targeting illegal immigrants have some baggage attached to them that I am not sure Alabama is ready to handle. The new Alabama law seeks to collect data on all school children as to their status in the United States.
HB 56 was signed into law by Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley in June. One of the provisions of the law requires public school educators to collect data to determine whether students are in the U.S. legally and report that information to the state. The law says the information would be used to prepare reports on how much educating the children of illegal immigrants costs the state. Methods of gathering the information have not yet been announced.
According to Janet Murgia in the Huffington Post:
This decision will endanger the civil rights and public safety of every Alabamian and the education of every child in the state. It helps no one for teachers to take precious time away from education in order to act as immigration agents. Fearful parents may take their children out of school. Birmingham Chief of Police A.C. Roper is against shifting scarce law enforcement resources away from municipal priorities to immigration. Teachers and police oppose these kinds of laws because they know that politically motivated stunts like HB 56 jeopardize their ability to do their jobs–educate children and protect the public’s safety.
Schools in Alabama have enough to do without becoming mini-ICE agents. Their job is to educate children, not round up the kids of illegal immigrants. I can’t think of a single school document where it is legal to ask the status of parents. Many kids already have a United States birth certificate. So just what identifier will be used to earmark these kids as ‘children of illegals?’
How will the information really be used? It must be the libertarian in me but I am opposed to government gathering information that they really don’t need on individuals. In this case, the school acts as the government. They cannot deny services to kids so, why do they need to know status? Expect parents to just keep their kids from going to school. The question then becomes, will the state go after the kids just to get to the parents? If they get them, what will the state do with the parents since they do not have the powers to deport?
Too bad Alabama has such a bad reputation. The state is doing nothing to help its own image as it enacts laws that ask for” papers please” to enroll children in school. It goes right along with fire hoses and dogs if you ask me. Alabama needs to clean up its act, once again. Shades of Bull Connor.
I’ll have to have a listen to Sweet Home Alabama today as a tribute.
Of course, there are still many people who are unable or unwilling to grasp the millennium-long history of the Germanic peoples due to their obsession with a particular 20 years. As if nothing ever happened before the 1920s in north central Europe. It’s a shame.
I am afraid Alabama doesn’t have that luxury. You don’t squirt demonstrators with fire hoses and you don’t try to gather information on children to get to their parents.
I saw those images as a kid. It wasn’t pretty.
You don’t enter this country illegally to begin with. It’s a booger when people have to be responsible for their own actions, isn’t it?
How about if they enter just they way they should and then forget to go home. 40% of illegal immigrants fit in that category.
Pokie, all your rhetoric on illegal immigration really is not what is in dispute here. I think everyone ought to enter legally also. However, when they don’t. do we hunt them down through their children? There are all sorts of woulda coulda shouldas here. I would like to see immigration modernized to fit the needs of this country. Unfortunately, people keep getting hung up on a misuse of the word amnesty and everything stalls. We will be having the same discussion 30 years from now.
Forget to go home…..that’s a good one. “Oops!!! It just slipped my mind!” “I was busy forming a new Vatos Locos set and it just slipped my mind!” “Darn this Blackberry Calendar! I had an alarm set to go home, and the darn thing just didn’t go off! No wonder their stock is in the toilet!”
You don’t think I really think they ‘forgot’ do you? Sarcasm time.
I’m being sarcastic, true. It’s not gorget to go home…it’s make a conscious decision to ignore our laws (and why not, since the enforcers selectively ignore them too?) And I’m supposed to reward that?
Once again, targeting children is disgusting, end of story.
Pokie, hypothetical question–what if every one of those people you think are undocumented actually had papers that made them here legally. How would you feel about the 12 million?
http://neatoday.org/2011/08/31/alabama-schools-worry-about-effects-of-harsh-immigration-law/
This legislation was obviously written by FAIR. This is what they wanted to do in PWC only you could be held legally liable if you didn’t “report” undocumented students or parents. This is insanity people and that decent people, whom I know, like Slowpoke actually defend this action, may be ever more troubling than the Alabama legislation itself.
If I could jump in on Pokie’s hypothetical question, I would give them the same answer my Dutch immigrant ancestors got. Welcome to America. Hope you make a personal success of your new life. Here’s a list of places where you can learn English and the legal requirements for citizenship. Oh, and here also is a list of the rules and ordinances which serve to maintain our standards and quality of life. You might have a bit of difficulty adjusting to some of these, coming as you do from a different culture; but our door is always open to help you with that. And hope to see you at PTA meetings. You’ll find that important for your kids.
Sort of makes me chuckle. Not long ago, we were patroling at night in our marked Neighborhood Watch car. One of our newer Hispanic residents — maybe illegal, maybe not — followed us for three blocks until he could get us to pull over and talk to him. Turns out he wanted to consult with us on whether the outsized commercial vehicle he was driving was eligible to be parked temporarily on the property without the risk of being towed. Wolverine got out, looked at the vehicle, and told the guy he was good to go. All Mrs. Wolverine could do was smile and remark: “By gosh, after all these years, I never thought I would see this day.” Our patrol ended on an upbeat note that night.
The concept of mandate reporters isn’t terribly unusual. Lots of folks are mandate reporters for all kinds of situations. My guess is there are 100 better ways of enforcing immigration laws than going after kids, and the supporters of illegal immigration have probably managed to whittle things down until this is the only way that can get passed as a law. I don’t know that for a fact, but I wouldn’t be surprised. The answer to all this mess is really quite simple. Don’t enter the country illegally in the first place.
The blame lies at the feet of all the federal level politicians who desperately try to pander to what they believe is a voting block by selectively not enforcing laws. Then when people who believe in the rule of law actually try to enforce it, they look “mean”. The mean people are the ones who send mixed messages by ignoring our laws in the first place.
@Wolverine
Did PTAs exist when your Dutch immigrant ancestors arrived?
As for teachers having to report abt kids’ status.
Does anyone remember the days when a teacher’s job was to TEACH?
I don’t rightly know about PTA’s back then, Punchak. Could be. My Dutch ancestors were city folk, and the kids went to at least elementary school. What I do know, however, is that my old Swedish great-grandpa (arrived 1887) learned English so fast that he became the director of the large rural township school district in which his farm was located and served in that capacity for over 20 years. He went around from farm to farm and house to house in a horse and buggy and took the school census. He also made up the district budget, and interviewed and hired the teachers for the schools. They even named a school and his own road after him. He was the go-to-guy between the parents (mostly immigrant farmers and farm laborers from all over Europe) and the county school system. I suppose in a way that was sort of like a PTA — but very spread out. Those farm families didn’t have much time to go to meetings and hold bake sales. Old granddad was the guy who carried their concerns to higher authority. And somehow I don’t think he would have been very happy if “gummint men” had come around making trouble for HIS kids.
Funny, as a genealogist I always look for the immigration and naturalization dates on the old census documents. I’ve found that virtually everybody from Mexico had an “AL” after their name. Found out that mean’t that they had never passed through an immigration station, largely because the border with Mexico was almost totally open in those days. Nobody seemed to care. They admitted it. The census taker noted it. And that was the end of it as far as I can determine. What can I say? Different world.
@punchak
In a word, NO. What a shame.
From cradle to grave, the government will be scrutinizing, watching, cateloguing and reporting on every aspect of our lives. I tell you, we are on the road to military dictatorship, while the majority of us applaude and support the government’s efforts.
They say a broken clock is right twice a day. You are correct, although you don’t understand why.
So how do you feel about children having to have a vaccination record to attend school? (I assume that’s still the case) What’s the difference between checking a medical record, and checking a birth certificate? Simple matter for those here legally. Your only gripe is that any check would possibly show the illegality of their presence. That’s your only concern. How about the health and welfare of those innocent children of our own citizens? No compassion for legals I guess.
I don’t think we have a valid comparison here. The ancestors of most African-Americans were kidnapped, brought here against their will, and forced to work as slaves. The 14th Amendment was designed to ensure that they enjoyed full rights as citizens (didn’t work too well). The Civil Rights movement was about ending discrimination and integrating people into a society that had brought them here and then shunned them when they felt they were no longer needed. A very bad part of our history as Americans is what happened in Alabama in the 1960s.
Illegal aliens come here (or overstay their visas) of their own free will, knowingly break our laws in the process, and then demand more “rights” and benefits than low-income Americans of all races. I don’t think it’s fair to compare the two situations.
Moon, you’re right, this argument will go on forever, or at least until the majority in this country are pushing for Spanish only. Be careful what you wish for. With the birth rate of married Hispanics, and unwed Hispanic teens eclipsing all others that will soon happen. At that point the military will be turned into a large day care center, and the border patrol will be abolished. The only hope is that we will run out of money to provide all the cost free births and free material support such that the birth rate subsides on its own.
How many people here know the history of American immigration laws?
I hope people watched the special on PBS Prohibition. Very interesting, a component of the push for prohibition was due to immigrants, changing the face of “real” America. The small town midwest was community did not like how people were coming here with their different cultures, not speaking the language. Sound familiar! But I am sure none of those pushing for checking the “papers” of children had ancestors who were once villified……….YOU must be different than THOSE immigrants.
SA,
Not sure that is the best analogy as you can be legally exempt in almost all 50 states from vaccinatins, most states offer medical or relilgious exemption.
@Wolverine
Re open borders – My mother-in-law and siblings were all born in Canada.
Family came across the border into NY state without any papers (early 1900s)
and settled in the Mohawk Valley.
@Second Alamo
You have totally missed my point if you think that it is all about birth certificates. It is not. I think all children should have a birth certificate and shot record to enter school. The fact that most kids nowadays will have an American birth certificate shows nothing. How will you tell if the parents are illegal immigrants?
There isn’t a mechanism.
NTK
The point is that Alabama has a bad track record with human and civil rights. Apparently many people saw nothing wrong with treatment of human beings back in the late 50s and 60’s. Will they see something wrong with using a law to try to extract status information from children?
I am suggesting that perhaps they should have been offended by both.
I agree, immigration and slavery have very little in common. However, treatment of those who might be considered “other” seems to be forming a pattern.
And, life isn’t fair. If you have a bad track record, it is bound to follow you around for a while.
You are making a mountain out of a molehill. As Ben Franklin once said, those wo;uld sacrifice liberty in exchange for security deserve neither.
Alabama on the OpEd page in today’s Post “A book ban overreaction”
“Slavery by Another Name”, a book by Wall Street Journal senior correspondent Douglas A. Blackmon, won a 2009 Pulitzer Prize for its historical account of the exploitation of African American prisoners in Southern states from the late 19th century until World War II. Etc.
Punchak — Good point. I’ve done some genealogical work on French-Canadians in New England and Quebec about 90-100 years ago.. It began to look to me some of them went back and forth over the border like the thing was just a minor inconvenience.
Moon — I don’t think we should be so hard on contemporary Alabamans. I just checked out the main elementary school where my relatives live. That is the “Deep South,” I tell you. The principal and teachers are worrying about the “disappearance” of some of their Latino kids and appear to be working hard to assure the families that their world is not about to come to an end with this thing. I think those school people will follow the law so far as it remains a “census” of sorts. But they are locals just like everybody else there, and I don’t think they will sit on their hands if somebody tries to go much further with this thing. Being as “Southern” as I know them to be, I am a bit surprised at how fiercely they seem to be defending their Latino kids as just “kids” in need of education. But then I consider that they are also surrounded by farmers who need that labor in the fields, and those farmers are not happy campers either as their labor disappears without replacements in sight. Seems to be happening in other parts of Alabama as well. I don’t think this is the 1960’s anymore.
One possibility I see out of all this is this country finally being forced to deal with the creation of a truly efficient and controlled guest worker program so neither the kids nor the parents have to sweat it out. I have a family friend in another state who runs his whole business on a controlled guest worker basis, and he swears by it. When the off-season comes, those workers like going back to Mexico or wherever with their pockets full of cash after doing a job that Americans really do NOT want to do anymore.
The educators would defend their Latino kids. I am not so sure about the rank and file good ole boys who are buying influence and somehow getting these laws on the books.
Why did those kinds of laws get put on the book? I am not sure how they are going to determine status anyway. Most kids entering school have an American birth certificate. It might be a similar situation to our dumb ass legislators voting for 150 hours of PE a week without having any idea how it was going to happen. Most elementary schools have no gym and most middle schools have insufficient gym space. Dec through March are pretty unpredictable as far as weather goes. Now….why don’t our VA legislators know that?
I agree with you about the guest worker program and you are right about Americans not wanting that kind of work.
Whoever drafted that law is a fool. I think that is what I am trying to say. They seen nothing wrong with targeting children and are so out of touch that they don’t realize they aren’t going to glean any information from kids or their birth records.
I believe most educators would not comply or would give it lip service and not not put much effort into it if it were even possible.
It has begun–the mass exodus from Alabama by Hispanics.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/us/after-ruling-hispanics-flee-an-alabama-town.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha23
Nearly 2000 students were absent state-wide in Alabama on Friday.
Moon, an interesting quote from the article you linked;
“Critics of the law, particularly farmers, contractors and home builders, say the measure has already been devastating . . .”
Combine this statement with Chairman Stewart saying proudly on WTOP last week that people will not be checked routinely for immigration status;
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=623&sid=2570651
As he gets more and more developer money to finance his ambitions, he’s moving away from illegal immigration as an issue. When he thinks it’s time to compete for state-level office watch for him to start calling for some sort of guest worker and path to citizenship plans.
Greg, HSM and others who helped him with illegal immigration are in the process as we speak of being thrown under the bus. Soon, they will be an outright liability and the Chairman will act as though he never knew them.
Hopefully Greg has outgrown HSM and his obsession with illegal immigration. I will never be convinced who was the real master there. Corey or Greg.
I have always thought the events of 2007 were a means to an end which was to stir up the citizenry to vote Republican during a time when Republicans has low voter approval because of the various Bush issues.