latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-alabama-immigration-20111009,0,3745939.story
Alabama's immigration law prompts alarm
The bulk of the law, the nation's strictest, is now in effect. Some praise
it as 'attrition through enforcement'; others see a humanitarian crisis.
By Richard Fausset, Los Angeles Times
6:03 PM PDT, October 8, 2011
Reporting from Leeds, Ala.
Alabama's estimated 130,000 illegal immigrants are worried. They are
confused. And in some cases, they have disappeared.
They have disappeared
from classrooms and from tomato fields.
Last week, some had disappeared
from the Guadalajara Jalisco restaurant, a former diner now serving Tex-Mex fare
to a largely American-born clientele in this sleepy town east of
Birmingham.
Manager Fredy Vergara had lost three of his 12 employees, and
more workers said they planned to leave soon, fleeing in fear of Alabama's new
immigration law.
Waiter Ever Salas struck out for Washington state. Elbia
Manzilla, for Texas. A hostess named Joana was a legal resident, but her parents
were not, Vergara said. They would probably head out soon for Chicago.
On
Wednesday afternoon, the regulars were rolling in for the lunch rush, and
Vergara's staff was making do, serving up enchiladas and chile rellenos, brisk
and courteous.
"But all we're thinking about," said Vergara, a legal
resident from Colombia, "is immigration."
The bulk of the new immigration
law, the nation's strictest, is now in effect after being upheld Sept. 28 by a
federal judge.
Among other things, the law requires police to check the
immigration status of suspects and turn illegal immigrants over to federal
authorities. It requires school officials to demand birth certificates from
students enrolling for the first time, though the schools may not turn students
away. It forbids illegal immigrants to engage in business transactions with
state government.
On Friday, the Justice Department asked the 11th
Circuit Court of Appeals to block the law until the court could consider it
fully. Government lawyers argued, as they have about similar legislation in
other states, that the law contravenes the federal government's immigration
enforcement function.
So far, the evidence of an Alabama exodus is
anecdotal. But proponents are already hailing the law as an example of
"attrition through enforcement."
Others, like Mary Bauer, legal director
of the Southern Poverty Law Center, are calling the law a "humanitarian crisis."
She said her anti-discrimination group had set up a hotline after the judge's
ruling and received 2,000 calls from worried families.
Callers were
afraid to drive sick relatives to the doctor. Kids at school were being bullied.
Municipal water companies were refusing to establish new service for people who
couldn't prove they were legal.
"It is a dark day here in Alabama," Bauer
said.
Some businesses are already feeling the effects. In northeast
Alabama, the owners of Smith & Smith Farms were trying to harvest 90 acres
of tomatoes with three trucks of workers each day instead of the usual
12.
"We have hired some whites," said Kathy Smith, wife of co-owner Leroy
Smith. "Some of them work out a little bit. Some might work three hours and they
quit."
Jimmy Latham, a Tuscaloosa contractor and president of Alabama
Associated General Contractors, said the law would slow down the rebuilding
effort underway in the wake of the devastating spring tornadoes.
"We're
seeing smaller crews and seeing work taking longer to accomplish," he said. The
bill's authors, he said, may have assumed that native Alabamians would take the
jobs that Latinos left behind, with state unemployment at 10%.
"That has
not been the case so far," he said.
State officials, meanwhile, have been
battling widespread confusion. The state's homeland security director, Spencer
Collier, has begun touring the state to brief law enforcement officers on how to
apply the law.
The state education department has sent Spanish-language
audio files to radio stations promising listeners that the immigration details
they collect will not be passed on to federal officials, but to the Legislature
to tabulate how many illegal immigrants were in schools.
It seemed to be
working, education spokeswoman Malissa Valdes said: On the Monday after
the ruling, 2,285 Latino students, about 6% of the statewide total, stayed home
from school. Two days later, the number was back down to 4%, the typical rate of
absence.
In Tarrant, a working-class suburb of Birmingham, Latino parents
with questions crammed into an information session at an elementary school with
children in tow. This small school district was "maybe 1%" Latino a decade ago,
Supt. Shelly Mize said. Today it's closer to 10%.
Monica Hernandez, an
organizer with the Southeast Immigrant Rights Network, advised the parents not
to open the door for anyone unless the person had a warrant — and to give only
their name and address to police until they could obtain the services of a
lawyer.
The parents asked about rumors: Could the police nab you just for
walking your kids to school?
No, Hernandez told them, the police must be
conducting an investigation and must have a "reasonable suspicion" that a person
is here illegally.
Is it true they are targeting male drivers, not
female? No, she said. And no to many others.
"Fear is normal," she told
them in Spanish. "But the only thing we can do is try to be as strong as
possible."
Afterward, a 30-year-old factory worker also named Monica was
one of many who pressed up with more questions. She was a single parent and a
homeowner, she said. If she moved, she wondered, what would become of her
house?
"I feel so depressed," she said. "I can't drive anywhere. I only
go to the store. I'm afraid."
At the Guadalajara Jalisco restaurant,
patrons had complicated feelings about the law and the restaurant, which was
started by a Mexican businessman about 15 years ago.
Janice and John
McLaughlin have been regulars for years. When the place opened, John said, they
were thrilled "to have something to eat that wasn't a burger."
But Janice
said the law was the law: "I basically think that if you're here illegal, you
need to be sent back."
richard.fausset@latimes.com
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times