07-05-2025
Alabama House passes two bills targeting immigrants without legal status
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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.
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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.
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