Alabama is joining North Carolina and Tennessee is going after immigrant students (though Alabama is targeting immigrants in general, too). Alabama’s new law:
…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.
Among other consequences, none of these measures are going to help increase parent engagement.
What is going on in the South?
I am a teacher in Alabama. And I find this new bill disgusting. My job is to teach all children who come into my classroom, not police them. I do not care if they are an immigrant or not. But I do care if they are being provided an education, as all children should. I work in education, not immigration.
Actually, I find most everything this new legislature in Alabama has done to be disgusting. They are so impressed with themselves and think they have the answers to everything. They are spending a lot of time trying to take away the rights of others.
Larry,
It is happening in Georgia too. HB 87 takes effect July 1 is a major issue too, although it is being challenged. The South has always been poked at for their backwards thinking, but over the past 25-30 years has used that as a way to build their economy. It was a successful marketing strategy.
Atlanta became a major international hub. The carpet (textile) industry, poultry, and agriculture sectors all advertised in Mexico that they needed workers, especially after NAFTA passed. The immigrants really did take the jobs the citizens would not take (and the unemployed citizens claimed they wouldn’t take the jobs in order to raise wages and benefits – which never happens in a “right to work” state). The immigrant workers were exploited, but it was still better than their homeland opportunities.
Eventually, these workers paid to have their families moved to the United States. Many of their kids have know knowledge of any country but the United States. We are now in a recession, and in order to make it look like jobs are being created, we are looking to decrease the population to make the percentages decrease, so politicians can get re-elected.
Loooooonnnnngggggg story short, What is going on in the South is what has always gone on in the South. The difference is once again racism, hatred, discrimination, are back in fashion. “Blame the other guy” for our worries is deep-seeded here, and has made a come-back.
In the home of Martin Luther King, Jr. the new race to hate is the Latinos who made a lot of businesses very wealthy in the past 20 years, at near share-cropper wages and no benefits. So when the immigrants needed health care, they went to Medicaid. Now, that policy of years ago is coming home to roost.
Racial profiling of Latinos is rampant, though down-played by law enforcement who set up road blocks in selective parts of towns. http://www.wdef.com/news/do_police_roadblocks_in_dalton_target_hispanic_drivers/05/2011
It’s not as bad as it could get though. The children of immigrants who were born here, and are citizens under the Constitution may either be forced to go to a country they don’t know if their parents are deported, but when they decide to return at age 15 or 20 to their home country, with little education and a vindictive spirit we may really be in trouble.
True colors are shining through. That is what is going on in the South.