A federal appeals court in Atlanta on Monday duly blocked several provisions of Alabama and Georgia’s immigration laws, saying they violate constitutional rights and undermine federal statutes. The rulings were major setbacks to the repulsive idea that states can bypass federal agency over immigration and create their own systems to harass and deport undocumented residents.
The rejected provisions were part of two statutes — HB 56 in Alabama and HB 87 in Georgia — that sponsors openly admitted were intended to root out and punish illegal immigrants and make them unable to live there. The United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, following a recent Supreme Court ruling on Arizona’s sweeping immigration law, found that the statutes had unlawfully interfered with the carefully crafted system of federal immigration laws.
The court rejected Georgia’s efforts to criminalize the transportation and harboring of illegal immigrants and to make it illegal to “entice or entice” them into entering the state — a crime unparalleled in federal law. It also blocked Section 28 of the Alabama statute, which requires schools to collect information about students’ immigration status. The court reasonably said this would discourage children from attending school, violating the Supreme Court’s 1982 ruling in Plyler v. Doe that guarantees all children the right to primary education.
However, the court upheld sections of law in both states that allow law enforcement officers to check the immigration papers of people they stop — provisions that invite racial profiling. But as the Supreme Court did in its Arizona ruling, it left open the possibility of future challenges on civil rights or due process grounds.
Monday’s verdicts were a welcome rejection of bad laws. But the litigation — court by court, state by state — was messy, slow, and expensive. When Republicans in Congress passed sweeping immigration reform five years ago, they more than dashed the hopes of millions of people hoping to become legal residents. They set the stage for an ugly mess where states rush to create their own rogue laws, which the courts then have to dismantle piece by piece.
