Protests, Racial Profiling, and a New Movement in Alabama

After an act of civil disobedience on Tuesday, November 15th, 13 youth and parents were arrested for taking a stand against Alabama’s HB 56. One Love Movement was there along with DreamActivist Pennyslvania and National Immigration Youth Alliance. This is a video they sent us from the event:

The video shows Cesar Marroquin and Ernesto Zumaya of DreamActivist and Alma Diaz from the Alabama Youth Collective hand delivering a letter to State Senator Scott Beason’s office to protest HB 56. It then shows them along with nine others in a sit-in around the Alabama State House in Montgomery.

These undocumented activists were protesting against the harshest anti-immigrant state legislation to date: HB 56. HB 56, signed into law on June 2011, denies undocumented immigrant families access to education, housing, and transportation. HB 56 would require elementary and middle school administrators to report undocumented students to Immigrations and Custom Enforcement (ICE), allow police to question people who may look undocumented, and ban undocumented students from attending state colleges.

Although anti-immigration laws and deportation are mostly seen by the general public as problems for the Latino community, laws like these greatly impact Southeast Asian Americans (SEAA) and all people who are seen as forever “foreigners” in this country. Many people, whether they’re legal immigrants, undocumented immigrants, or refugees, enter the U.S. with expectations and dreams of equality, justice, and opportunities for success to build better lives for their families.  According to data from the American Community Survey in 2010, there are almost 11,000 SEAAs in Alabama, and a few of them as well as other minority groups in the state do not see themselves being impacted by the law at all. But when our country makes it legal to scrutinize people based on what they look like, it reminds us that the color of our skin still matters. And it doesn’t matter how we arrived, when we arrived, and how much we have contributed to the United States when the color of our skin can still stop us from being seen as true American citizens. This is why we salute One Love Movement for standing in solidarity with protestors to break the cycle of fear for all people facing unjust immigration laws.