Click here to subscribe today or Login.
A TIDE OF anti-immigrant sentiment has produced the nation’s harshest crackdown on undocumented residents.
While the courts have blocked some of Alabama’s draconian law, it still stands as a distressing example of the growing national anger at vulnerable people whose main offense is wanting to pursue better lives in this country.
Alabama’s law makes criminals of anyone who would “harbor” or “transport” an illegal immigrant. Parents will have to start asking a child’s Hispanic playmate to show them his papers before allowing him to sleep over. Likewise for any landlord renting to someone with a foreign accent.
Enforcement of such extreme measures, which clearly contradict federal law, was temporarily blocked by U.S. District Judge Sharon Blackburn. But other harsh steps got her blessing. State and local police now have huge discretion to check for immigration papers and detain a person on only an undefined “reasonable suspicion” of illegal status.
Ironically, this anti-immigrant fervor comes at a time when federal enforcement of immigration laws actually has gotten tougher. Deportations have reached record levels, while the number trying to enter illegally appears to be dropping.
Those illegal immigrants who have been in this country a long time and lived otherwise law-abiding lives should be given a path to citizenship. America is still a magnet for those who want better lives, and Americans should be proud of that.