SCSJ joined a civil rights amicus brief filed in the case over Alabama’s HB56, a law considered by many civil rights groups to be the worst of the Arizona SB1070 copycat legislation that has moved through several statehouses in the past year. ACLU Immigrant Rights Project, ACLU of Alabama, Latino Justice PRLDEF, the National Immigration Law Center, and the Southern Poverty Law Center are seeking a preliminary injunction to enjoin HB 56 from taking effect next month.

The Alabama law goes beyond Arizona’s SB1070 by making it unlawful even to provide shelter to undocumented immigrants. It also bans undocumented youth from pursuing an education in community colleges or four-year universities. It attempts to discourage parents from enrolling their undocumented children in public education by permitting school officials to report children to the Department of Homeland Security whom they suspect to be in the country illegally. In May, the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice send a strongly worded letter reminding school systems of their obligations to educate children irrespective of their immigration status. Aside from federal civil rights law, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld these children's right to an education in Plyler v. Doe (1982).

Other than SCSJ, 27 Amici organizations have joined the brief. The others are the Alabama State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), The Alabama Council on Human Relations (ACHR), Alabama New South Coalition (ANSC), Alabama NOW (part of the National Organization for Women), Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), Birmingham Peace Project, Dominican American National Roundtable (DANR)/National Dominican American Council (NDAC), Equality Alabama, Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund, Hispanic Federation, Immigration Equality, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (Lawyers’ Committee), Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA), National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), National Council of La Raza (NCLR), National Employment Law Project (NELP), National Guestworker Alliance (NGA), National Immigration Law Project of the National Lawyers Guild (National Immigration Project), New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice (Workers’Center), Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF), Society of American Law Teachers (SALT), Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute (USHLI).

Read the amicus brief here.