Report | Immigration

Crisis in Alabama

On Nov. 16, 2011, a group of African American labor leaders traveled to Alabama on a fact-finding mission to investigate and document the impact of H.B. 56, America’s harshest new anti-immigration law. Each of us was profoundly affected by what we saw and heard. Many of us were aware of the law and understood generally that it was an attempt by the state of Alabama, like many other states, to do something about the illegal immigration crisis, given the failure of the U.S. Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform. None of us expected to witness the humanitarian crisis we experienced—a crisis that hearkens Alabama back to the bleakest days of the state’s racial history. The parallels to Jim Crow were all too real, and the prejudice we heard about felt all too familiar. This report captures our experience and makes preliminary recommendations for what the labor movement should do in the face of this crisis.

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