by Soraya Schwartz
Hispanic Link News Service
It is possible that the children in Alabama, whose parents immigrated illegally to the US, do not attend school this year, following the passing of state law HB56, which demands schools to collect information regarding students’ citizenship.
The law, signed on June 9 by the Republican Governor Robert Bentley, will enter into force on September 1. An amicus curiae was presented before the court, together with a protest about the law’s provisions regarding education, by the National Education Association and the Alabama Education Association. Several civil rights advocacy groups adhered to the amicus curiae, including the National Council of La Raza.
“We fervently agree– and is stipulated by the Supreme Court– that every student has the right to receive quality public education, regardless their migration status”, said Alice O’Brien, legal advisor for the National Education Association. “The role played by the teachers is to teach our kids, not to report them”.
The law HB56 states that the teacher would commit a state felony if he or she doesn’t reveal information regarding the citizenship of the students.
The HB56 also stipulates that it is legal to detain any person who resides in Alabama, with a foreign looking aspect, to ask him or her to produce citizenship documents, and that any person who houses or protects an undocumented individual could face legal actions.
“This law reminds us to racist laws such as Jim Crow from Alabama and other Southern states”, said Bernard Simelton, head of the State Conference NAACP in Alabama. “HB56 is a contemporary attempt to legalize racism in Alabama”.
State announces voting initiative to replace death penalty in California by 2012
“From now on, the SB 490, authored by Senator Loni Hancock, gives the voters the opportunity to decide whether to replace or not death penalty for life sentence with no probation, and will be in the Appropriations Committee of the Assembly.
We have wide evidence that the death penalty system in California is dysfunctional and costly. Death penalty implies for Californian taxpayers an expense of roughly $170 million a year, while 46 per cent of homicides and 56 per cent of rapes stay unresolved in the state. The $4 million dollars that the state has spent in 13 executions since 1978 should have been invested in reinforcing the law to solve murders and in taking criminals off the street, and they should have also been assigned to schools for children.
California’s broken system risks as well to execute innocent people for crimes they didn’t commit. More than 100 people in the city have been mistakenly put in death row and many have been executed.
