Civil Rights Leaders To Rally Against Alabama Law in Birmingham, AL
Washington, DC—(ENEWSPF)—September 1, 2011. Statement by SEIU International Secretary-Treasurer Eliseo Medina:
“In a letter from the Birmingham jail where he was detained after being arrested during a demonstration in 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote: ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.’
“Those words remain true today, 48 years later, as members of the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice rally tonight against the state’s unduly harsh immigration law, HB56, that was scheduled to take effect today but has been delayed pending a court decision on its merits.
“While the focus of the debate has been on immigrants, the truth is that every aspect of the lives of all Alabamians would be affected if this unjust law goes into effect.
“The law, signed by Gov. Robert Bentley in June, establishes racial profiling by allowing police to detain those they suspect are undocumented residents, based on the color of their skin. It turns businesses, landlords and educators into immigration enforcers and effectively creates a separate class of school students, in what we believe is a violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. ‘Good Samaritans’ also would be punished if they transported an undocumented immigrant anywhere, including to a hospital emergency room.
“More broadly, the Alabama law interferes with the federal government’s constitutional authority to set and enforce immigration law.
“The U.S. Department of Justice as well as the Southern Poverty Law Center, the National Immigration Law Center, SEIU and others filed lawsuits against Alabama’s unconstitutional law. We are hopeful that the federal court will find this law to be unconstitutional.
“In the meantime, we call on Gov. Bentley and the Alabama state Legislature to repeal HB56.
“Not only is this law illegal, it is a gross attack against basic civil rights and our core values as a nation, and must be stopped. As Dr. King said, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.'”
Source: seiu.org
