Alabama immigration contradicts somewhat with Georgia ruling

By Shomial Ahmad

Atlanta, GA –

Alabama's immigration law has been described by both sides as one of the nation's most stringent state immigration laws. Debbie Elliott is a correspondent with National Public Radio. She's been following the Alabama law. She says federal judge Sharon Blackburn let several of the law's most controversial provisions stand, including:

"Local law enforcement must verify the status of suspects that they pull over say in a traffic stop or someone who might be arrested and suspected of a crime. And if they find that those people don't have proper documents, they're supposed to put them in jail."

A similar provision that allowed local law enforcement to check the immigration status of criminal suspects without proper IDs was blocked by federal judge Thomas Thrash in Atlanta. Elliott says Thrash was very harsh in his opinion of the Georgia law.

"Wheras Judge Blackburn was more measured in taking provisions back and forth and sort of seeing that maybe there is a path for states to have this."

Elliott says judges on the 11th circuit court of appeals will be the next step in weighing the constitutionality of these laws. WABE legal analyst Page Pate says the focus of constitutional arguments will be on preemption, or how far can states go in areas normally regulated by the federal government.

"When you're dealing with an area like immigration that has traditionally been left to Congress, to the federal government-- then it's problematic to have a variety of different state laws that create different standards in varying degrees of enforcement."

Since Alabama and Georgia are in the 11th circuit that federal appeals court will hear any appeals. The Georgia Attorney General has appealed the Georgia decision, and Alabama civil rights groups say they plan to appeal that decision. The question then becomes, Pate says, whether the court decides to hear the cases separately or together.