Immigration law change the factors

In an attempt to invoke the memory and passion of the civil rights movement, a group of Democratic lawmakers will stand Monday in a historic church in Birmingham to help rally opposition to the state's new law that seeks to get tough on illegal immigrants. The 10 Democrats, including Rep. Terri Sewell of Birmingham, will participate in an ad hoc hearing on the immigration law and later help launch a petition to repeal it at the historic 16th St. Baptist Church in Birmingham. The church was the site of the 1963 bombing that killed four little girls during the civil rights movement.

"The history of fighting for justice and fighting for basic rights is still alive in Alabama," said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., who is heading the trip. "Indeed, a lot of what we know about social movements, about social change and fighting for justice, we learned from the people of Alabama less than a generation ago." In an attempt to invoke the memory and passion of the civil rights movement, a group of Democratic lawmakers will stand Monday in a historic church in Birmingham to help rally opposition to the state’s new law that seeks to get tough on illegal immigrants.

The 10 Democrats, including Rep. Terri Sewell of Birmingham, will participate in an ad hoc hearing on the immigration law and later help launch a petition to repeal it at the historic 16th St. Baptist Church in Birmingham. The church was the site of the 1963 bombing that killed four little girls during the civil rights movement.

“The history of fighting for justice and fighting for basic rights is still alive in Alabama,” said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., who is heading the trip. “Indeed, a lot of what we know about social movements, about social change and fighting for justice, we learned from the people of Alabama less than a generation ago.” The deadlock, which shows no sign of ending and could lead to a second Justice Department lawsuit, comes after the administration last year sued Arizona and, weeks ago, filed suit against South Carolina. Government lawyers are also considering challenges to laws in Utah, Georgia and Indiana.

The lawsuits are a key part of the administration's civil-rights efforts on behalf of immigrants, a top priority even as President Barack Obama is under fire from Hispanic groups over his stepped-up deportation policies.

The Alabama law is considered the toughest of six new state immigration statutes, which include provisions giving police new authority to question legal status, among other things. At least 17 other states have considered such measures this year.

The dispute has stirred painful memories of Alabama's segregationist past, with accusations that the law targets Hispanics. A civil-rights group compared Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange to then-Gov. George C. Wallace standing in front of a schoolhouse in 1963 as he resisted federal efforts to enroll Black students at the University of Alabama.

"The intemperate language of (Strange's) letter does remind us of George Wallace in the schoolhouse door," said Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which set up a hotline to monitor discrimination complaints over the immigration law. He said the hotline has received nearly 4,000 calls.

Supporters of the law, considered one of the toughest in the country, welcome the federal lawmakers.

"We live in America. The First Amendment gives them the right to come and say what they want to say," said State Republican Rep. Kerry Rich, a co-sponsor of the measure. "Some of these people are comparing this to 1961 or the civil rights days. Here's the difference - in the 1960s . . . Alabama was wrong for what it was doing. "

Today, he said, the state is right to press for better enforcement of federal immigration laws.

"What we're upset about is they won't enforce the law," Rich said of federal officials. "That's where the breakdown comes."

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