How long does it take a governor to flip flop and buckle under pressure from Tea Partiers? 老澳门开奖结果 a day, if you鈥檙e Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley.
On Friday, he signed a bill making flawed revisions to HB 56, the nation鈥檚 most extreme anti-immigrant state law. Just a day earlier, Bentley had declined to sign the new measure, which was rammed through the Legislature on the last day of its 2012 regular session. Instead, he summoned lawmakers to reconsider the bill in a special session in order to 鈥減revent children from being interrogated鈥� by school officials about their immigration status and the status of their parents. He also cautioned against the 鈥減ublic relations problem鈥� that would ensue from a startling new requirement that the state Department of Homeland Security post online the names of every undocumented immigrant who appears in a state court.
The response from extremists in the legislature came swiftly. Last year Rep. Micky Hammon boasted that HB 56 鈥渁ttacks every aspect of an illegal alien's life 鈥o that . Sen. Scott Beason had urged fellow legislators to on undocumented immigrants So, it should come as no surprise that it was Hammon and Beason who led the charge on the first day of the special session to re-introduce a bill identical to the one Bentley had criticized, with one noxious twist: the state Department of Homeland Security would also be required to a post online a photograph to accompany the name of each undocumented immigrant. Bentley bent. The original bill was signed.
Much of the law, which promotes racial profiling, has been tied up in litigation brought by the 老澳门开奖结果 and other civil rights groups,). The law has engendered a , harming citizens and immigrants alike. It has tarnished the and has shrank the state鈥檚 economy by Bentley was hardly alone in highlighting the interrogation of school kids as troublesome. That provision directly targeting children of immigrants has done more than anything else in HB 56 to make Alabama a pariah, generating scorn across the U.S. and internationally. Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange recommended its repeal, its defense in litigation a drain in resources whose costs greatly outweighed its benefits. Let鈥檚 call it what it really is: beyond the pale. Kids should be left off the battlefield of the immigration wars.
The other provision Bentley had momentarily objected to involved the posting of the names of undocumented immigrants who appear in state courts, along with the names of the judges who hear their cases and the decisions rendered. The 鈥渟carlet letter鈥� it imposes applies regardless of whether there has been a conviction. It is a naked attempt to bully judges into imposing harsher sentences and refusing to release immigrants from detention and will expose immigrants to harassment and vigilantism. What Beason referenced as one more "tweak" to HB 56 is actually a reckless doubling down on his "empty the clip" approach that will mire Alabama in more controversy and litigation.
If there is a bright side, it is that this episode will further spur a growing movement to repeal HB 56 in its entirety, a movement with much stronger resolve than Governor Bentley.
