Alabama House passes two bills targeting immigrants without legal status
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways
Protesters march during a nonviolent protest in Birmingham, Alabama, in protest of bills targeting immigrants on Saturday February 22, 2025. The Alabama House of Representatives Tuesday passed two bills targeting immigrants without legal status. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)
The Alabama House of Representatives passed two bills on Tuesday that target immigrants without legal status in the state.
SB 53, sponsored by Sen. Wes Kitchens, R-Arab, would require law enforcement to determine the legal status of those they have a 'reasonable suspicion' of being in the country without status during stops. The bill also makes it a Class C felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for a person to 'knowingly transport into this state another individual if he or she knows is an illegal alien,' which the bill defines as human smuggling.
'It codifies the practice that jail administrators are already doing now in terms of reporting illegal immigrant detainees and verifying their immigration status,' said Rep. Ben Robbins, R-Sylacauga, who carried the bill in the House.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Rep. Thomas Jackson, D-Thomasville, questioned what 'reasonable suspicion' is.
'If you're not profiling, what is your reasonable suspicion that they're unlawful?' Jackson said. 'Being Hispanic is not a crime. Being Spanish is not a crime.'
The language is similar to language in HB 56, the 2011 state law that attempted to criminalize the lives of immigrants without legal status. Federal courts gutted much of the law.
The House adopted a Judiciary Committee substitute 92-0 that provided exceptions for people to transport people without legal status. One is for health care providers transporting patients, if people are transporting people for religious or charitable reasons, or people that an attorney who represents an individual authorizes.
The Senate approved the legislation in February, after the body removed language in the original bill that echoed language in the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act that threatened those who helped enslaved people escape with fines and imprisonment.
The bill offers several exceptions for people who are transporting people who are not legally authorized to live in the U.S. into Alabama, such as attorneys transporting clients to different immigration facilities or educators escorting their students for a school related activity.
The legislation was criticized by the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice at a public hearing and in a statement Tuesday.
'SB 53 puts U.S. citizen family and friends at risk of felony charges for simply driving their loved ones. It was unconstitutional when the Alabama Legislature did it in 2011, and it is unconstitutional now,' Executive Director Allison Hamilton wrote in the statement.
Rep. Phillip Ensler, D-Montgomery, said he is concerned about the situations that are not listed as an exception in the legislation, like going to a wedding across state lines and one person in the car is undocumented but is married to a U.S. citizen.
'Does that not concern you that people just doing innocent things, visiting family, doing joyous occasions like a wedding that they can be charged with a felony for smuggling?' Ensler asked Robbins.
The Coalition had similar concerns.
'I live really close to the Georgia border and not everyone in my family is documented. I can't believe it would be illegal for me to drive my in-laws to the nearest hospital since it crosses the state line,' Jordan Stallworth, civic engagement coordinator at the Coalition, wrote in the statement. 'This type of targeting is dehumanizing and demoralizing. My family deserves better. All our families deserve better.'
Robbins said there is a 'serious problem' in the state and the country with bad actors.
'I think that we've got a serious problem in the state and the country of people transporting individuals for commercial reasons and exploiting them for cheap labor,' Robbins said. 'I think we have to do something to try to address that problem. I am more focussed on addressing those bad actors.'
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 4% of Alabama's population is foreign-born. The national average is 14.3%.
The bill passed 80-18. It goes to the Senate for concurrence or conference committee. There are two days left of legislative session.
The House also passed SB 63, sponsored by Sen. Lance Bell, R-Riverside, which requires fingerprinting and DNA collection from non-citizens in custody, adding them to a state's forensic database. Rep. Mark Shirey, R-Mobile, carried the legislation in the House. He said the bill will expedite the process for DNA results.
'Right now when they detain an illegal immigrant for the feds, they wait for the feds. The feds come to get them and they do the DNA and fingerprints and send it to the national lab,' Shirey said. 'They're backup is two and a half years and the backup in the state is two and a half hours.'
The bill passed 76-7 with no discussion. It goes to Gov. Kay Ivey.
SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
33 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Minnesota budget deal cuts health care for adults who entered the US illegally
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Adults living in the U.S. illegally will be excluded from a state-run health care program under an overall budget deal that the closely divided Minnesota Legislature convened to pass in a special session Monday. Repealing a 2023 state law that made those immigrants eligible for the MinnesotaCare program for the working poor was a priority for Republicans in the negotiations that produced the budget agreement. The Legislature is split 101-100, with the House tied and Democrats holding just a one-seat majority in the Senate, and the health care compromise was a bitter pill for Democrats to accept. The change is expected to affect about 17,000 residents. Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, who insisted on maintaining eligibility for children who aren't in the country legally, has promised to sign all 14 bills scheduled for action in the special session, to complete a $66 billion, two-year budget that will take effect July 1. After an emotional near four-hour debate, the House voted 68-65 to send the bill to the Senate, where Majority Leader Erin Murphy, of St. Paul, had already said she would supply the necessary Democratic vote to pass it. Under the agreement, the top House Democratic leader, Melissa Hortman, of Brooklyn Park, was the only member of her caucus to vote yes. 'This is 100% about the GOP campaign against immigrants,' said House Democratic Floor Leader Jamie Long, of Minneapolis, who voted no. 'From Trump's renewed travel ban announced this week, to his effort to expel those with protected status, to harassing students here to study, to disproportionate military and law enforcement responses that we've seen from Minneapolis to L.A., this all comes back to attacking immigrants and the name of dividing us.' But GOP Rep. Jeff Backer, of Browns Valley, the lead author of the bill, said taxpayers shouldn't have to subsidize health care for people who aren't in the country legally. Backer said California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has proposed freezing enrollment for immigrants without legal status in a similar state-funded program and that Illinois' Democratic governor, JB Pritzker, has proposed cutting a similar program. He said residents can still buy health insurance on the private market regardless of their immigration status. 'This is about being fiscally responsible,' Backer said. Enrollment by people who entered the country illegally in MinnesotaCare has run triple the initial projections, which Republicans said could have pushed the costs over $600 million over the next four years. Critics said the change won't save any money because those affected will forego preventive care and need much more expensive care later. 'People don't suddenly stop getting sick when they don't have insurance, but they do put off seeking care until a condition gets bad enough to require a visit to the emergency room, increasing overall health care costs for everyone,' Bernie Burnham, president of the Minnesota AFL-CIO, told reporters at a news conference organized by the critics. Walz and legislative leaders agreed on the broad framework for the budget over four weeks ago, contrasting the bipartisan cooperation that produced it with the deep divisions at the federal level in Washington. But with the tie in the House and the razor-thin Senate Democratic majority, few major policy initiatives got off the ground before the regular session ended May 19. Leaders announced Friday that the details were settled and that they had enough votes to pass everything in the budget package.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Rep. Julie von Haefen on why both competing state budget proposals at the legislature come up short
State Rep. Julie von Haefen (Photo: NCGA) Well summer is here and with its arrival, the end of the state fiscal year will soon follow, and that means North Carolina legislators are under some pressure to pass a new state budget. Right now, however, despite complete Republican control of both the Senate and House, the two chambers remain far apart and that could portend a long hot summer at the Legislative Building. So, what's at the heart of the dispute and where do both budget proposals come up short? Recently to get a handle on these issues, how lawmakers got in this fix, and why the state might be better off if they listened for a change to some different voices, Newsline's Rob Schofield caught up with a Wake County lawmaker who's spent the better part of seven years trying to get her colleagues to open their minds to some new ideas, State Rep. Julie von Haefen. Click here to listen to the full interview with Rep. Julie von Haefen.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Stephen Miller hits Rand Paul over LA unrest
A top aide to President Trump took aim at Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Monday over Paul's objections to the president's agenda-setting tax and spending measure while protests are underway in Los Angeles over the administration's immigration crackdown. 'While ICE officers are battling violent mobs in Los Angeles, Rand Paul is trying to cut funding for deportations and border security,' White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller wrote in a post on the social platform X. Paul has emerged as one of the most vocal Republican opponents of Trump's megabill because of its price tag and increase to the federal debt. Paul and other GOP senators vowed to vote against the bill after narrowly passed the Republican-controlled House last month unless additional spending cuts are made. 'Congress is like drunken teenagers, they're terrible with money,' Paul said during an appearance this weekend on Fox News's 'Sunday Morning Futures.' 'This is literally out of control.' He reiterated his position on X after Miller's rebuke Monday. 'Don't fall for the Swamp's version of reality, where they claim we either borrow against our future to secure our border now, or we have wide-open borders,' he wrote. 'We can have BOTH border security AND fiscal responsibility; $75 billion is more than enough to accomplish both.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
