MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama lawmakers advanced two bills targeting illegal immigration and unveiled others on Wednesday, all designed to complement President Donald Trump’s crackdown effort.
House Bill 302, filed Tuesday by Rep. Ben Robbins, R-Sylacauga, would require labor brokers that recruit six or more foreign workers per year to register with the Department of Workforce and use the federal E-Verify program, which confirms the eligibility of employees to work in the United States. The bill also establishes penalties for noncompliance, including fines of up to $500 per infraction and criminal penalties up to a Class C felony for providing false information or employing unauthorized workers.
“This bill protects Alabamians’ hard earned tax dollars by making legal immigrants pay taxes, preventing immigrants from taking benefits they do not deserve, and holding sponsors fiscally responsible,” Robbins said Wednesday in a statement.
State law already requires business use E-Verify, though efforts to enforce compliance have previously failed.
House Bill 304, sponsored by Rep. Jamie Kiel, R-Russellville, which would authorize the impoundment of vehicles operated unlawfully by Alabamians without a driver’s license.
House Bill 3, sponsored by Rep. Chip Brown, R-Hollinger’s Island, would mandate enhanced criminal penalties for undocumented immigrants convicted of felonies against minors, upgrading, for instance, a Class B felony to a Class A felony.
House Bill 297, sponsored by Rep. Jennifer Fidler, R-Fairhope, would impose a 4% wire transfer fee on international money transfers originating in Alabama.
“Many (immigrants) send their earnings out of the country and, in some cases, to the cartels that facilitated their crossing,” Fiddler said in a statement. “HB297’s primary objective is to support communities that have been burdened by this immigrant influx. It does this by ensuring that 2.5% of the wire transfer fee comes back to the county where the wire transfer originated.”
Fiddler said that the wire transfer fee would help offset costs for English Language Learners programs in public schools, with more than 8,000 unaccompanied minors detained at the U.S.’s southern border sent to Alabama between in the past four fiscal years, according to federal data. Those minors were sent to the state via an unaccompanied minors program administered by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, a longstanding source of frustration for Alabama officials and lawmakers.
House Bill 298 would exclude English Language Learners program students who do not participate in any interscholastic athletic events from being included in student population counts as it relates to classifying schools for athletic competitions.
“This bill is designed to protect student-athletes in communities like Albertville, Boaz, Russellville and many others that have had to move to higher athletic classifications due to a significant influx of immigrants,” said Rep. Brock Colvin, R-Albertville, the bill’s sponsor.
Lawmakers advance two bills targeting illegal immigration
State lawmakers also advanced two previously filed bills on Wednesday.
House Bill 7, sponsored by Rep. Ernie Yarbrough, R-Trinity, would allow for state law enforcement to arrest individuals based on their status as an illegal immigrant, would allow state law enforcement agencies to enter into agreement with federal agencies to enforce federal immigration laws and would mandate that law enforcement make a “reasonable effort” to determine the nationality of any arrested individual.
In a House Committee on Public Safety Wednesday, Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, pointed to the provision mandating law enforcement determine an arrested individual’s nationality, calling it “a huge red flag.”
“When you go through what’s called a suspect classification, you start getting the highest level of scrutiny from any court from that point forward,” England said.
“So if you say that law enforcement, when someone is incarcerated in the county or municipal jail, that part of the inquiry is to determine a person’s nationality, you’ve already begun moving towards being unconstitutional, because ultimately, someone’s status here has absolutely nothing to do with their nationality.”
Yarbrough defended the provision’s inclusion in his bill, saying that it was included only as a tool to help facilitate communication between law enforcement and an arrested individual for instances where a language barrier may exist. England pushed back on Yarbrough’s explanation, however, arguing that as written, his bill would mandate law enforcement determine an arrested individual’s nationality regardless of whether a language barrier existed or not.
“The way you’re explaining the bill is not what it says,” England said. “I haven’t even asked you about your language yet (as a law enforcement officer under your bill), because before I do that, I’ve got to find out where you’re from, which is directly unconstitutional, you can read a whole bunch of case law about it.”
Katie Glenn, senior policy associate for the Southern Poverty Law Center, was active throughout the Alabama State House Wednesday monitoring the passage of bills targeting illegal immigration, and told Alabama Daily News that SPLC held concerns over HB7.
“We continue to be concerned certainly about the constitutional points like what Rep. England raised, but also about the practical impact of deputizing local law enforcement to do a job that’s better left to federal law enforcement,” Glenn told ADN. “Specifically, what this is going to mean is increased instances of racial profiling of Alabamians across the state.”
Senate Bill 63, sponsored by Sen. Lance Bell, R-Riverside, which would mandate that law enforcement agencies collect fingerprints and DNA samples from illegal immigrants while in their custody. The bill was approved by the House Ways and Means General Fund Committee,
“What this does is requires fingerprints if an illegal is in custody before they bond out; state gets the fingerprints and DNA, and then the DNA is sent to forensics to put in our database,” Bell said. “We’re already doing it on all felonies, we’re already doing it on all sex crimes, this just adds one more group that gets the same thing done they’re already doing.”
Last week, the Alabama Senate passed three bills targeting illegal immigration, among them the aforementioned SB63. While the close to a dozen bills targeting illegal immigration currently making their way through the Alabama State House have garnered strong support from House and Senate Republicans, Democrats have largely opposed the measures, as have organizations like SPLC.
“We do have some concerns as there seems to be just this huge rush to pass bills targeting immigrants in Alabama, about how those will work together and if they will work together,” Glenn said.