The situation in Alabama has grown increasingly worse since the passage of HB 56. Last weekend, The Washington Post ran a story about the throngs of Latino families who are leaving the state.
Across Alabama, news of the court ruling has swiftly spread panic and chaos among trailer parks and working-class areas where legal and illegal immigrant families from Mexico and Central America — as many as 150,000 people, by some estimates — live and work at jobs their bosses say local residents largely refuse to do.In Foley, a sprawling seaside resort town where hundreds of Hispanic immigrants work in restaurants, sod farms and seafood industries, many families last week were taking their children out of school, piling their furniture into trucks, offering baby clothes and bicycles on front lawns for sale and saying tearful goodbyes to neighbors and co-workers they might never see again.
On a blogger call earlier this week, advocates on the ground in Alabama described the situation as dire.
“The parts that are still in effect and are of most concern are the racial profiling aspects of the law, which is causing tremendous fear and terror in the immigrant communities,” said Rev. Angie Wright, Faith in Communities Coordinator for Greater Birmingham Ministries.
Deepak Bhargava, Executive Director of the Center for Community Change, said HB 56 must serve as a wake-up call for Americans everywhere.
“This law is significant because if there are not efforts to reverse it, we will likely see this play out with much human cost all over the country. We need to create a tidal wave of action,” said Bhargava. “We are all Alabama.”
Vanessa Stevens, communications coordinator for the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama (HICA), an NCLR Affiliate, was also on the call and said that HICA has heard from countless families who are afraid to do anything at all. Many of them have been living in the state for ten to 15 years.
Our friends over at America’s Voice have also been doing some great reporting from Alabama. The video below features an Alabama teacher speaking about the effects of the law on her students.
Be sure to check back often for updates and for ways you can take action against this anti-immigrant and anti-Latino law. Follow the conversation on Twitter using the #CrisisInAL hashtag.