Saturday, June 4, 2011

The New York Times shows it's objectivity again

I remember an episode of All in the Family where Archie said to a member of the KKK "I'm as American as you, I'm against everything that's right!" Kinda like the headline from the dean of American newspapers, the New York Puke, err Times.

In Alabama, a Harsh Bill for Residents Here Illegally
By JULIA PRESTON
Now Ms Preston, is enforcing the law “harsh” in your mind? I guess so (or it’s so in the mind’s of your editors who approved this). Forgive me Ms Preston but in the minds of many in flyover country this is called things like the rule of law and fair play. You want to come to this county, come on in the front door, play by the rules, learn the language, assimilate. But I guess that’s a concept foreign to a rag that was once a great paper.

Alabama has passed a sweeping bill to crack down on illegal immigrants that both supporters and opponents call the toughest of its kind in the country, going well beyond a law Arizona passed last year that caused a furor there.

The measure was passed by large margins in the Alabama Senate and the House, both Republican-controlled, in votes on Thursday. Governor Robert Bentley, a Republican, is expected to sign the bill into law.

“Alabama is now the new No. 1 state for immigration enforcement,” said Kris Kobach, a constitutional lawyer who is secretary of state in Kansas. He has helped write many state bills to curtail illegal immigration, including Alabama’s.

“This bill invites discrimination into every aspect of the lives of people in Alabama,” said Cecillia Wang, director of the immigrants’ rights project of the American Civil Liberties Union, which has brought legal challenges against several state immigration-control laws. Calling Alabama’s bill “outrageous and blatantly unconstitutional,” Ms. Wang said, “We will take action if the governor signs it.”

The Alabama bill includes a provision similar to one that stirred controversy in Arizona, authorizing state and local police officers to ask about the immigration status of anyone they stop based on a “reasonable suspicion” the person is an illegal immigrant. Federal courts have suspended most of that Arizona law.

Alabama’s bill goes beyond Arizona’s. It bars illegal immigrants from enrolling in any public college after high school. It obliges public schools to determine the immigration status of all students, requiring parents of foreign-born students to report the immigration status of their children.

The bill requires Alabama’s public schools to publish figures on the number of immigrants — both legal and illegal — who are enrolled and on any costs associated with the education of illegal immigrant children.

The bill, known as H.B. 56, also makes it a crime to knowingly rent housing to an illegal immigrant. It bars businesses from taking tax deductions on wages paid to unauthorized immigrants.

“This is a jobs-creation bill for Americans,” said Representative Micky Hammon, a Republican who was a chief sponsor of the bill. “We really want to prevent illegal immigrants from coming to Alabama and to prevent those who are here from putting down roots,” he said.

The Alabama bill comes at the end of a legislative season when many states wrestled with immigration crackdown proposals. Measures focusing only on enforcement failed in 16 states, according to a tally by the National Immigration Forum in Washington, a group opposing such laws.

...The bill requires all Alabama employers to use a federal system, E-Verify, to confirm the legal status of all workers. The measure also makes it a state crime for an immigrant to fail to carry a document proving legal status, and makes it a crime for anyone to transport an illegal immigrant.

Maybe you are more like Archie than you think Ms Preston. What the hell...he's a better image for the city that your paper.

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