Papers, Please In Alabama

Last night a federal judge refused to block some of the most controversial provisions of Alabama's "toughest in the nation" anti-immigration law and today those provisions take effect.

Beginning Thursday, authorities can question people suspected of being in the country illegally and hold them without bond, and officials can check the immigration status of students in public schools, Gov. Robert Bentley said.

Those two key aspects of Alabama's new law were upheld by a federal judge on Wednesday.

The governor said parts of the law take effect immediately.

"Today Judge Blackburn upheld the majority of our law," Gov. Robert Bentley said in a brief statement he delivered outside the State Capitol in Montgomery, The New York Times reported. "With those parts that were upheld, we have the strongest immigration law in the country."

There is some good news, but only because the most obscene and the most patently ridiculous parts of Alabama's law were blocked:

• Make it a crime for an illegal immigrant to solicit work.
• Make it a crime to transport or harbor an illegal immigrant.
• Allow discrimination lawsuits against companies that dismiss legal workers while hiring illegal immigrants.
• Forbid businesses from taking tax deductions for wages paid to workers who are in the country illegally.
• Bar illegal immigrants from attending public colleges.
• Bar drivers from stopping along a road to hire temporary workers.
• Make federal verification the only way in court to determine if someone is here legally.

So that's something, but all that means is that the Overton Window of immigrant hate has been slid to the right some more.  The provisions for police and public schools to have to check immigration status which were blocked in other states are now allowed in Alabama and as of right now are being enforced.  Any private contract or public transaction with an undocumented immigrant in Alabama is now null and void, meaning the state is free to deny any service to them, or that contracts like rental leases are moot.

Alabama's law is headed for SCOTUS for sure, but the anger against Latinos and other minorities in the US continues to be leveraged by the GOP into political power in red states.