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Just five months after signing into law the nations “toughest” anti-immigration law, Alabama lawmakers are having “second thoughts amid a backlash from big business, fueled by the embarrassing traffic stops of two foreign employees tied to the state’s prized Honda and Mercedes plants.”
The backpedaling involves the state’s Republican attorney general calling for the repeal of the the strictest parts of the law, Republican lawmakers now saying they want to make some changes and the Alabama governor contacting foreign execs to say they’re “pro-foreign” countries, the Associated Press reports.
By comparison, in Arizona, it took almost a year before business leaders told state lawmakers, including the disgraced Arizona Senate President Russel Pearce, who was booted from office during a November recall election, to put the breaks of anti-immigration laws.
“… we strongly believe it is unwise for the Legislature to pass any
additional immigration legislation, including any measures leaving the
determination of citizenship to the state,” the Chamber wrote in March 2011. Governor Jan Brewer signed the measure into law in April 2010.
Autoworkers getting tangled in Alabama’s immigration law is not a good
look for the state considering the state is home to several major
automakers, including Mercedes Benz, Hyundai, Honda and Toyota, that
pour millions into the state’s economy.
LULAC today called for auto manufacturers and related supply companies to reconsider doing business in a state that has passed and is enforcing anti-immigration laws like HB 56 (their much-harsher version of SB 1070.)
Alabama’s latest round of negative national attention was prompted when Alabama police arrested a Mercedes Benz executive from Germany
because he wasn’t carrying the right identification under the state’s
new anti-immigrant law. And a Japanese worker assigned to the Honda
manufacturing plant was also cited “even though he had a valid Japanese
passport and international driver’s license,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
The cases against both men have been dropped, but Alabama is still reeling from the bad press.
From AP‘s report:
The Republican sponsors of the
immigration legislation promoted it as a jobs bill that would run off
undocumented immigrants and open up employment for legal residents. That
was an easy political sale in a state suffering from nearly 10 percent
unemployment. Even some Democrats voted for the law.Since the law took effect,
Alabama’s unemployment rate has dropped a half percentage point.
Economists and state officials who compile the statistics say it’s too
early to say whether to credit the immigration law.But one of the sponsors,
Republican Sen. Scott Beason of Gardendale, said neighboring states
without a similar law haven’t seen the same drop. “There is nothing else
to attribute it to,” he said.If there has been any damage, he
said it’s the fault of inaccurate portrayals in the news media. He said
the media ought to be reporting: “This law establishes a safer, more
secure environment for people to come here and invest their money.”
Safer? Secure?
Ask the Mercedes Benz executive from Germany who was arrested and dragged into court.
