UU Alabama Ministers send Gov. Bentley Message on HB56

Late last night, Alabama sent substitute bill HB56 to Governor Bentley to be signed. This morning, the following letter signed by the Alabama Ministers was sent to Governor Bentley urging him to veto this bill.

3 June 2011

State Capitol
600 Dexter Avenue
Montgomery, Alabama 36130

Dear Governor Bentley:

When the Legislature presents its substitute bill for HB56, I hope you will veto it. There are many reasons why this bill needs to be vetoed this year. But the major reason is it is simply not good for Alabama.

Governor Bentley, you recently sent back to the Legislature the proposed budget because there were bills that have not yet been passed that would place the budget out of balance and therefore make the budget unconstitutional. This bill will also make the budget unconstitutional in Alabama. Sections 22 and 23 require an increase in the state budget but because this bill falls under Amendment 621, a cost analysis is not needed to be established. But there is a cost that will be added to the state budget; and since Alabama is struggling to balance the budget in these dire economic times, this unknown cost will place the budget out of balance.

The act of criminalizing a whole group of people has costs associated to it that the state legislature has refused to seriously acknowledge. The arguments against these increased costs are based on assumed cost savings that are speculative and not based on real numbers of undocumented immigrants. We do not know how many immigrants are undocumented in the state but the Legislature is assuming that all Spanish speaking citizens are undocumented. This bill, therefore, targets anyone whose first language is Spanish and who looks like they come from south of the border.

Despite all arguments that racial profiling will not be permitted, human nature will dictate the occurrence of racial profiling. Our law enforcement personnel will not be able to be adequately trained to determine reasonable suspicion when language and ethnicity are part of the mix. But even if they were adequately trained, this bill also requires schools to determine if students were born in this country. Federal law requires that all children be given a public education regardless of national origin. This bill increases racial profiling in the schools.

This bill states the presumption that undocumented immigrants are causing economic hardship and an increase in lawlessness. There is no proof that this is the case. The legislature has come up with spurious anecdotes but nothing is found in the documentation. There is documentation that immigrants (undocumented and documented) have increased the state’s revenue in taxes and increased economic development in their respective communities. In fact, the state has had a decrease in violent crimes over the last decade even while the immigrant population has increased. This presumption is therefore a biased statement.

Governor, I urge you to veto this bill when it comes across your desk. It has components that in Arizona have cost that state millions of dollars in litigation. It has components that are blatantly prejudiced and demonize a hard-working segment of our population. This is not a job creation bill unless Alabama is seeking to increase the private for-profit prison industry in the state by criminalizing a whole population. Is this the Alabama you want to create as a legacy of your administration?

Sincerely,

Rev. Fred L Hammond, Minister, Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa

Rev. Diana Allende, Minister, Auburn Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

Rev. Lone Jensen Broussard, Minister, Unitarian Universalist Church of Birmingham

Rev. Paul Britner, Minister, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Montgomery

Rev. Alice Syltie, Minister, Unitarian Universalist Church of Huntsville

Text of presentation at SB 256 Public Hearing

Senate Bill 256 section two opens with this statement, “The state of Alabama finds that illegal immigration is causing economic hardship and lawlessness in this state.” I would like to know on what evidence does the state of Alabama make this assumption.

Here are the facts, The Congressional Budget Office in 2007 determined, “Over the past two decades, most efforts to estimate the fiscal impact of immigration in the United States have concluded that, in aggregate and over the long term, tax revenues of all types generated by immigrants—both legal and unauthorized—exceed the cost of the services they use.”  This does not indicate economic hardship.   The law advocacy group, Alabama Appleseed, found data that stated that immigrants in Alabama account for 4.9 Billion dollars in state revenue in 2009.  This also does not indicate economic hardship.

So what about lawlessness.  Since 1980 both violent and property crime rates have dropped nationwide according to the US Census Bureau.  But let’s look more closely at Alabama with data from the FBI. In 1980, Murder rates were at 13.2 per 100,000 and in 2009, 6.9 per 100,000.  Rape, robbery, aggravated assault remained roughly the same between 1980 and 2009.

What about the numbers of immigrants nationwide—in 1980 1-16 people was an immigrant, in 1990, 1-13 and in 2007 1-8 were immigrants. This data is from Center for Immigration Studies.   In Alabama, we know that according to the US census, the immigration population in 1990 was 1.1%.  It grew to 2% in 2000 and to 4% in 2010.  So if immigrants were indeed causing an increase in lawlessness, then their increasing numbers might be found to correlate with an increasing number of crimes but this is not the case.  What does show a possible correlation to crime rates is the increase of the poverty rate in Alabama from 14.6% in 2000 and 16.6% in 2010.

The State of Alabama has not proven its case that immigrants, documented or undocumented are causing either economic hardship or increased lawlessness.  What the state of Alabama has proved by this bill is that it is scapegoating the economic woes of Alabama on the backs of immigrants instead of addressing the real cause of its problems which is a corrupt tax code that deliberately privileges corporations and the wealthy and over burdens the working class and poor.

The result of this will be economic suicide.  Alabama may succeed to drive out our immigrant population because of the racial profiling and harassment that will ensue resulting in all of our businesses losing the 4.9 Billion dollars in revenue this group of hard working, decent people contribute annually.

You were elected to create jobs so that Alabama can thrive but this hardhearted, and dare I say, arrogant bill will instead destroy Alabama.  Do not go down this immoral and unjust path, Alabama’s people deserve better from you. You are better than this.