05/21/13 The rest of the world is learning something we’ve known for awhile: Alabama Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions is extremely and obsessively anti-immigrant. And his behavior being noticed.  During the mark-up of the Senate’s “Gang of 8″ bill, Sessions has stood out – often on his own. Dana Milbank at the Washington Post wrote: Not since [...]
Read More »

05/03/13 Outside of a few right-wing outlets, like National Review, Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions doesn’t have a lot of allies in his quest to stop immigration reform these days. This week, he took to the airwaves in Boston to spew his vitriol about immigrants and immigration with notorious radio host Howie Carr. In the twenty minute [...]
Read More »

05/01/13 Fresh off their success calling out Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and his longtime failure to support immigration reform, Cesar Vargas and the crew at DRM Capitol Group are now going after Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL).  Teaming up with Alabama DREAMer Victor Palafox, Palafox and Vargas are taking to Sessions’ home state paper (the largest online [...]
Read More »

04/29/13 Cross-posted at Left in Alabama A lower court’s ruling striking down most of Alabama’s HB 56 law will stand, we learned when the Supreme Court announced it would not not hear the state’s appeal to revive its worst-in-the-nation anti-immigrant law. It was two years ago that Alabama passed HB 56, a horribly strict “self-deportation” law that chased immigrants out [...]
Read More »

04/26/13 Cross-posted at Daily Kos. This was a big week in anti-immigrant ranting for Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions (R-AL), the leader of the “Gang of Hate.” It’s becoming more and more clear that Sessions is on a mission to defeat immigration reform. You might even call it an obsession. At the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing earlier [...]
Read More »

04/18/13 Yesterday, the Senate Gang of 8 introduced its long-awaited bipartisan immigration bill. Tomorrow, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold its first hearing on the bill, with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. The hearing will probably double as our first chance to see the anti-immigrant “Gang of Hate” in action on the Senate bill. [...]
Read More »

04/16/13 Over the weekend, the notoriously anti-immigrant Senator from Alabama, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions (R), appeared on ABC’s “This Week” to assert his role as the leading opponent of the Senate bipartisan reform bill. As Think Progress noted, the main thrust of Sessions’ economic claim wasn’t even true – and was debunked by conservative columnist George Will [...]
Read More »

04/04/13 Yesterday, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Joey Kennedy took a whack at Senator Jeff Sessions for trying to stall immigration reform in their home state* newspaper, with a column entitled “Do Nothing? Now that’s something Sen. Jeff Sessions can do.” As Kennedy writes: I guess it makes sense that U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama would join [...]
Read More »

03/19/13 At today’s House Judiciary Committee hearing on ICE’s recent release of hundreds of immigrants from detention, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R – AL) asked Director Morton a question that immigrant rights advocates have been asking for years: “Is it possible that you are detaining more people than you need to?… Maybe there is an overuse of [...]
Read More »

03/18/13 President Obama nominated Thomas E. Perez, the nation’s top civil rights enforcer, as the new secretary of Labor today, another sign of immigration reform’s current significance on the national stage. Perez is the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, and has led the Administration’s efforts against state anti-immigrant laws like Arizona’s SB [...]
Read More »

02/21/13 Many members of Congress have been at home this week, meeting with their constituents and speaking about–among other things–immigration reform legislation currently being considered in Congress. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), one of the most anti-immigrant members of the Senate, encountered some of his pro-immigration reform constituents yesterday, at a fish fry the Senator held in northern Alabama. [...]
Read More »

12/18/12 This week, NPR is airing a series of reports on the state of US immigration and the prospects for reform in 2013.  In the latest segment, Debbie Elliott looks at Alabama’s worst-in-the-nation anti-immigrant law HB 56, which was first implemented just over a year ago and still has consequences today.  Here’s an excerpt from the [...]
Read More »

12/13/12 The Beloved Community Church in Avondale, Alabama has given Pulitzer Prize-winning Birmingham News columnist Joey Kennedy (who is often covered on this blog) its annual Incarnation Award, for his stance against Alabama’s anti-immigrant law HB 56. As the church said in its statement announcing the award: This year we are honoring Joey Kennedy with this [...]
Read More »

12/07/12 When Republicans in the North Carolina House of Representatives put together a special committee on immigration last year, the expectation was that we’d see ugly legislative recommendations along the lines of Arizona’s SB 1070 and Alabama’s HB 56 recommendations. But, a funny thing happened along the way – probably something to do with the intense [...]
Read More »

12/06/12 Two weeks ago, Detention Watch Network launched their new “Expose and Close” campaign, identifying ten of the worst immigrant detention centers in the nation and calling for them to be closed.  Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Joey Kennedy at the Birmingham News visited one of these detention centers in Gadsden, Alabama, and wrote a column today [...]
Read More »

11/29/12 More than a year after Alabama began implementing state anti-immigrant law HB 56—which was supposed to be a jobs bill–Alabama now has the worst economy in the American Southeast.  The state has endured a year of civil rights groups and supporters comparing the state’s present to its famously ugly racial past, and federal courts no [...]
Read More »

10/31/12 Last night in Alabama, undocumented former Washington Post reporter Jose Antonio Vargas spoke at an Immigration Town Hall entitled “Do I Look ‘Illegal’?” and discussed Alabama’s HB 56 anti-immigrant state law as well as anti-immigrant sentiments like it around the nation.  One of HB 56’s sponsors, state Sen. Scott Beason (R), was invited to attend [...]
Read More »

10/25/12 This time last year, Alabama had just begun implementing its worst-in-the-nation anti-immigrant law, HB 56, causing chaos in the state and forcing neighborhoods full of immigrants to flee.  At the time, state senator and HB 56 sponsor Scott Beason rationalized the law as “a jobs bill,” one that would drive immigrants out of the state [...]
Read More »

09/25/12 Remember that crazy anti-immigrant law out of Alabama – HB 56? The one that was so bad that we referred to it as the monster of all immigration laws, which also resulted in a mass-exodus of Alabama’s Hispanic population? Here’s a reminder from an article in Bloomberg today: The Alabama law’s intent was to attack [...]
Read More »

09/11/12 Yesterday, the state of Alabama filed a motion asking the full 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear arguments about the state’s worst-in-the-nation anti-immigration law.  The Alabama law, HB 56, made international news for targeting schoolchildren in an overzealous attempt to make their undocumented parents self-deport.  Alabama’s appeal comes after a three judge panel from [...]
Read More »

08/20/12 Some news coming out of the 11th circuit court today regarding the Alabama and Georgia anti-immigrant laws – According to Ben Winograd at Immigration Impact: In a series of decisions issued Monday afternoon, a federal appeals court in Atlanta struck down major portions of controversial immigration laws passed by Alabama and Georgia—including a provision requiring [...]
Read More »

08/16/12 Yesterday, when Mitt Romney visited Birmingham, Alabama for a fundraising event at the city’s exclusive restaurant — “The Club” — he was met outside by a number of protestors from the Immigrant Youth Leadership Initiative of Alabama. The group chanted “education, not deportation” and held up signs that read “no papers, no fear.” Last year, [...]
Read More »

06/14/12 In addition to their amazing cover story and video on the DREAM Act and the plight of immigrant youth, TIME Magazine today has a great story on the “fiscal fallout of state immigration laws,” or what happens to states that try to “deport their way to prosperity.” As the article begins: State-level immigration laws don’t [...]
Read More »

06/04/12 Immigrant rights groups were incensed at Hyundai’s silence when Alabama passed its anti-immigrant law, HB 56. Now that the state legislature has made a bad situation worse with its “tweak” bill, HB 658, the auto company has yet to speak out against the way immigrants are being treated in Alabama — even though the company [...]
Read More »

06/01/12 Alabama’s social and economic crisis continues after the state legislature passed another law that actually made worse what was already the worst racial profiling law in the nation, HB 56.  And the backlash is growing against Alabama. Yesterday, on a call with reporters, national civil and labor rights leaders announced next steps in the ongoing battle [...]
Read More »

05/29/12 Immigration reform activists and supporters from all over Alabama converged on the state Capitol in Montgomery to protest the passage of HB 658 over the weekend, rallying together in a mega-march led by the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice. HB 658 became law last week when Alabama Governor Robert Bentley caved into anti-immigrant legislators and [...]
Read More »

05/22/12 Alabama Governor Robert Bentley pulled a complete reversal on HB 658 last weekend, caving in and signing a bill that makes the state’s already harsh anti-immigrant policies even worse–after he had initially expressed reservations and a wish to see the bill revised.  Since then, leading editorial writers in Alabama and across the nation have been [...]
Read More »