Apache Junction, Ariz., Oct. 1 -
The Pinal County Greens today passed a resolution condemning Alabama's immigration law, calling it "the equivalent of Kristallnacht for Alabama Hispanic schoolchildren." Significant parts of the law, which Pinal County Greens co-chair Richard Grayson termed "even more odious than Arizona's SB 1070," were found constitutional by a federal judge this week, prompting the law to go into effect.
"This law is totally anti-American," said Grayson. "Reports now say Hispanic students are disappearing from Alabama's public schools by the hundreds because their parents fear the law's provision that requires schools to check students’ immigration status."
The resolution of the Pinal County Greens, members of the Arizona Green Party in Pinal County, the nation's second-fastest-growing county, condemns the Alabama law and demands its immediate repeal by the Alabama legislature or a blockage of the law by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals as a violation of equal protection and due process and an unconstitutional preemption of federal immigration statutes.
"As Alabama's farmers, contractors and homebuilders know, this law will have grave economic effects," said Grayson, the 2010 candidate for the U.S. House in Arizona's Sixth Congressional District. "Crops will rot in the fields and there'll be critical shortages of labor and less consumer spending as people leave Alabama."
Even fully documented Hispanic citizens are disappearing from Alabama, the Pinal County Greens resolution said, because the legal status of family members is often mixed — children are often American-born citizens — but the decision whether to stay is made to protect those who are not documented.
Grayson, who has taught constitutional history, noted that in Plyler v. Doe (1982), the Supreme Court found that all children living in the United States have the right to a public education, whatever their immigration status.
The resolution also called on President Obama to scrap his xenophobic Secure Communities programs of local dragnets, which simply exacerbate the fear, and to do more to defend core American values against the hostility against immigrants that has overtaken Alabama, Arizona and other states.
The Pinal County Greens commended this editorial in today's Anniston Star:
It may be some time before the effect of Alabama’s new anti-immigration law is fully understood. More appeals are under way. The fight against this mean-spirited legislation is not over.
But at a number of Alabama public schools, the effect already is profound.
On Wednesday, a federal judge in Birmingham upheld key parts of the law, including the provision requiring public schools to verify the citizenship of students. On Thursday, reports trickled in about how Hispanic students and their families reacted to the state’s insistence that it will enforce this law with gusto.
As one principal told the Mobile Press-Register, “It’s been a challenging day, an emotional day. My children have been in tears today.”
In Decatur, school officials said 32 students withdrew from school and many others didn’t attend. Seven Hispanic students withdrew from Austinville Elementary. The scene was chaotic.
“Parents, students and the principal were crying,” Austinville Principal Beth Hales told the Decatur Daily. “It’s tough because you get to know the children and their families … I wish they would wait and see what happens before they leave us.”
In south Alabama, there are 223 Hispanic students at Foley Elementary. On Thursday, 19 students withdrew from school, and another 39 were absent.
“We have been in crisis-management mode, trying to help our children get over this,” Principal Bill Lawrence told the Press-Register. “They’re afraid.”
A greater number of Hispanic students are expected to withdraw from that school by next week, Lawrence said.
All across Alabama, newspapers are carrying stories of these young students — in most cases, young Alabamians born in the United States, the principals say — who are suffering from this misguided and hateful law.
That Larry Craven, the interim state school superintendent, says children already enrolled in schools won’t be checked, that only students who enroll after Sept. 1 will have to prove their citizenship, isn’t mattering to many Hispanic families. That Craven says all students must be enrolled whether they have the proper documents or not is carrying little weight with some of these families.
For now, those who want illegal immigrants driven from Alabama at any cost are getting some of what they want. Some immigrant families are leaving the state, officials are saying. But a terrible byproduct is falling on the shoulders of young Alabamians of Hispanic descent who deserve the same public-school education as any other Alabama student.
That principals are reporting their students are scared, their students are afraid, their students are crying about being pulled out of school, should make legislators such as Sen. Scott Beason, R-Gardendale, and Gov. Robert Bentley hide their faces in shame.
Beason was a sponsor of the bill that Bentley signed into law.
What would Beason and Bentley tell these young Alabamians? That their education isn’t important? That the state doesn’t care about them?
This is a dark day in Alabama. Beason and Bentley should join these principals as they counsel crying, scared students. They should see the damage from their handiwork.
"We must not allow these innocent kids to become los desaparecidos," said the Pinal County Greens resolution. "That is not the American way."
