House Democrats Headed To Alabama This Month To Protest Law
Illinois Congressman Luis Gutierrez, a staunch pro-immigrant advocate, organized other House Democrats this week to make a trek to Alabama in protest of that state’s harsh anti-immigrant law. According to a statement from his office the meeting was meant to:
“call national attention to the injustices happening in Alabama and commit to a national response.” The planned trip, the dates of which are still being finalized, follows on a trip Rep. Gutierrez took to Alabama Oct. 21-23 on which he spoke to civil rights, Latino, African-American, religious, immigrant, and municipal leaders about the impact of Alabama’s “Papers Please” law that allows police to arrest people on suspicion if they feel like questioning their immigration status.
“When it is considered a felony and a deportable offense for a mother without immigration papers to sign her U.S. citizen children up for a library card, clearly we have a national civil rights emergency,” Congressman Gutierrez said, referring to reports that all manner of transactions involving immigrants in the U.S. illegally have been criminalized in Alabama.
The Birmingham News reported that, after a meeting Gutierrez convened Wednesday:
U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., met with seven colleagues plus staff members from more than a dozen other offices Wednesday to plan a public meeting in Birmingham for them to hear testimony from people affected by the law. The schedule has not been set, but it likely will be either Nov. 21 or Nov. 28, Gutierrez said.
It will be interesting to see what happens on that trip.
[Photo By U.S. Congress]
