Kids didn’t go to school in fear that this law might result in their parents’ deportation. Think Progress quotes an Alabama news site:
Many of the 223 Hispanic students at Foley Elementary came to school Thursday crying and afraid, said Principal Bill Lawrence. Nineteen of them withdrew, and another 39 were absent, Lawrence said, the day after a federal judge upheld Alabama’s strict new immigration law, which authorizes law enforcement to detain people suspected of not being U.S. citizens and requires schools to ask new enrollees for a copy of their birth certificate.
Somehow it doesn’t surprise me that Alabama, site of a church bombing in Birmingham in 1963, a state which elected and re-elected Bull Connor, the man who unleashed dogs and used fire hoses on black citizens in that city in 1963, should find a new brown target for its racist tendencies.
It’s interesting that the politicians didn’t listen to the farmers who warned that their crops would rot in the fields because the law would drive their workers away. Apparently the Ag lobby in Alabama isn’t as strong as the racist one.
I grew up there, you know. My bet would be that most people assume that there aren’t actually that many undocumented immigrants in Alabama, and this is a harmless way to make a point.
The point is clearly racially based, mind you. But people will be shocked when the consequences hit.
You’re probably right, Juli. Just another example of “Be careful what you ask for.”
This is simply tragic!