Alabama House committee approves bill targeting immigrants

The House Judiciary Committee Wednesday  approved legislation that requires law enforcement to verify people’s immigration status during a stop if they have “reasonable suspicion” they are not authorized to be in the country.

SB 53, sponsored by Sen. Wes Kitchens, R-Arab, also makes it a Class C felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for someone to knowingly transport a person without proper authorization into the state.

“The intent of this bill, what we are trying to do, is to provide tools for our law enforcement officers,” Kitchens told members of the committee. “If someone has broken the law, if the person has been arrested and taken to jail, to give the law enforcement officers and the jails, county, municipal, state jails, the authority they need to be able to verify immigration status when that individual was there.”

Jasmin Hernandez-Alamillo, the community health coordinator for the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice, a group that advocates for immigrants, attended the meeting and said he felt “utter devastation” at the vote.

“They are not recognizing human beings as human beings,” she said. “That makes me extremely upset because I come from immigrants. My family are immigrants. I work with immigrants every single day, and they do not see us as humans.”

The committee approved Kitchens’ bill one week after the committee hosted a public hearing in which members heard from several who spoke against the legislation, with one pastor telling the committee it violates Christian values, and a second person saying it could prevent people from obtaining the necessary paperwork to bring their children back to their home country in the event they are deported.

The Senate approved the legislation in February, after the body removed language related to the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, that forced the public to assist slave catchers return people to bondage to the south.

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.

Members of the House Judiciary Committee approved other exemptions to the crime of human smuggling as part of an amendment. 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.

“Many times people are already afraid of law enforcement and are already afraid to tell them, ‘Hey, something is going on, something is going wrong in my community, I need help.’” Hernandez-Alamillo said. “ Particularly as it involves human trafficking, and I think this will dampen those efforts to try and eliminate that issue in our society.”