Hispanics feel harassed under Alabamas immigration law | Round ...

July 21, 2012
By Alan Gomez

When Natividad Gonzalez?s 3-year-old daughter fell off the stairs at their home in Maplesville, Ala., the panicked mother raced to the local hospital.

She carried her daughter into the emergency room and scanned the room for help, but came to halt when a doctor approached them.

?Instead of asking me what happened to my daughter, he asked me what her (immigration) status is,? said Gonzalez, 27, who emigrated from Mexico illegally nine years ago, but gave birth to her daughter in the United States, making the child a U.S. citizen. ?People think that doesn?t really happen. They say the new immigration law won?t affect people who are legal. But that?s wrong.?

As Arizona officials prepare to implement a section of its immigration law that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court last month, they could use the experience of Alabama as a guide.

Six states have passed laws in the last two years that require local police officers to check the immigration status of suspects if the officer believes the person may be in the country illegally. Judges blocked five of those states from implementing that law, including the Arizona case that ended up before the Supreme Court. But a federal judge in Alabama allowed that law to go into effect.

Now, nine months later, Hispanic residents complain that they?re subjected to constant harassment and racial profiling by police and other state officials in Alabama. Civil rights groups set up a hotline in the state, and more than 6,000 people have called in with complaints, said Mary Bauer, legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has helped file lawsuits to block state immigration laws.

?And this is a state with a tiny immigrant and Latino population,? Bauer said. ?I imagine this playing out in a state like Arizona, and it?s just incredibly heartbreaking to imagine the many people who will be subjected to this treatment.?

Law enforcement agencies from around the state say their officers have implemented the new law responsibly and have not engaged in racial profiling. Officials with the

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