Immigration Story

Immigration Paper

As Americans I believe we have come far in regards to racism, but we definitely still have a far to go. I still see a lot of discrimination happening to minorities, and it is not just our black race, it's equally spread to the Hispanics and most recently the immigrants. In the past year there has been a lot of coverage in regards to stiffer laws being placed on illegal immigrants in the United States. Several states have went to extreme measures to ensure that immigrants who cannot prove their citizenship be deported or placed in jail. As a country we have allowed immigrants to come to the United States and work and live until they were able to obtain US citizenship or green cards. I saw some articles and media coverage within the last year that really bothered me, especially in the state of Alabama.

I believe the reason I was so disturbed by the law, was because Alabama is one of the states that still have a lot of racism within their communities.

In the state of Alabama was one of the toughest immigration laws (HB 56) signed back in mid October 2011. Alabama is one of four southern states that have placed strict immigration laws into effect, but Alabama's is said to be the harshest. It has been said that there is an estimated 11 million immigrants in the United States. Alabama has approximately 120,000 living in the state.

The American Civil Liberties Union stated that this bill was inviting racial and discriminating profiling against people. Several civil rights leaders believe the HB 56 bill is taking Alabama back to its racist roots that were demonstrated so many years ago.

Immigration Paper

The law is known as the HB 56 and was introduced to the state house in March 2011. This law would impose penalties on employers who hire undocumented immigrants. They will fine the employers who fire United States citizens and the hire immigrants to do the job that they fired the United States citizen for. The law also would allow the public schools to request documents from students who are attending the public schools to prove their citizenship, but thankful President Barack Obama successfully had this abolished. The police would also be able to search anyone they felt was illegally in the country to be jailed without bond.

When this topic was being discussed I remember seeing the news reporters seeking to get answers from the lawmakers, and asking them question in regards to why they felt this was the right thing to do. I believe the media did a great job of covering this from both ends of the spectrum. Of course when you would turn to different TV stations you could really tell that fox 48 new was very supportive of the law, and brought the side of the republicans to the public. CSNBC did not support the law at all, and was more in line with the way the democrats viewed the law. So I believe that you were able to see both point of views and you were allowed to hear the debates that were going on with the different political parties. I do believe the media did an effective job of bringing the issue in an objective way, but knowing how many immigrants are in the United States along with the minority groups Democrats were more on the side of wanting to abolish the law or making some serious adjustments. Republicans felt this was long over due and wanted to see the law become wider spread then just the