The brief was filed Monday (PDF) in the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, which is considering the constitutionality of the law after a federal judge upheld key provisions of the law in September. “HB 56 is nothing less than a modern-day incarnation of some the most abhorrent types of institutionalized discrimination to have emerged in the history of the United States,” read the brief.

The brief argues that HB 56 encourages or even forces Alabama law enforcement, schools, public offices, and ordinary citizens to discriminate based on race, ethnicity and national origin. In the context of Alabama’s “long and disturbing history of civil rights violations,” the brief compares HB 56 to Alabama’s Jim Crow laws that “required law enforcement officials to enforce discriminatory laws, and criminalizing the exercise of fundamental human liberties.”

The law excludes children of color, particularly Latino children and children of other immigrant communities, from public schools, mandates racial profiling, and permits the detention of U.S. citizens and lawfully present immigrants if they fail to establish their immigration status to the satisfaction of local law enforcement.

HB 56 threatens public safety by eroding relationships between law enforcement and immigrant communities, resulting in underreporting of crime, especially hate crimes. It also threatens the personal liberty and property for anyone that may appear or sound foreign.

The legislation represents a form of legalized racism that threatens the Latino community in Alabama most directly, but also impacts all people of color, including Middle Eastern and Asian Americans.

Protecting the 14th Amendment
By Eva Paterson
Huffington Post

For almost 150 years, the 14th Amendment has been the backbone of civil rights law in America. Its protection of individual rights for all — from freed slaves to immigrants to workers fighting against race discrimination — has made this amendment an honorary member of the Bill of Rights.

No wonder it is under attack.

In recent months, Republican Senators and state legislators have sought the public spotlight by calling for an end to the amendment’s guarantee of citizenship to those born on U.S. soil. If a child’s parents are not documented, they shout, that child should not be allowed to be a citizen. If they had their way, they would roll back a U.S. Supreme Court decision, U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, decided more than a century ago.

If this is what the enemies of the 14th Amendment are doing in the spotlight, imagine what they are doing behind the scenes to eviscerate the measure. Those who want to turn the clock back on civil rights also are trying to undo the Amendment’s Equal Protection clause, making it virtually impossible for victims of discrimination to find justice in our courts. Read more.

The lawsuit, a class action filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, challenges the constitutionality of this recently passed law on the grounds that it invites the racial profiling of people of color, violates the First Amendment and interferes with federal law.

The amicus brief argues that an injunction is justified on three principal grounds.

First, SB 1070 will result in discrimination against communities of color. Although the statute was written seemingly to exclude the possibility of racial profiling, in practice, there is no question but that this law will lead to heightened and disproportionate police scrutiny of minorities. Because Mexico is the nearest border, Latinos especially will be targeted under SB 1070.

Second, this bill threatens public safety in Arizona. If enforced, it will breed resentment and distrust of the police in communities of color. Fearing immigration inquiries, communities of color are very likely to report crime less, making their neighborhoods increasingly unsafe. Moreover, the under-reporting of crime in minority communities will render them even more vulnerable to hate crimes.

Finally, the bill, ostensibly designed to reduce crime, simply does not justify the means. American history is sadly littered with numerous statutes aimed at excluding certain minority groups from the benefits, rights, and liberties granted to the majority. The courts have struck down those laws for over 150 years. SB 1070 is in keeping with this sordid past and must also be struck down.

The organizations also sought to address misinformation and fears that have been spreading throughout the Latino community across Arizona.

MALDEF, ACLU, ACLU of Arizona and NILC leaders were joined by civil rights leaders Dolores Huerta, Richard Chavez and multi-Grammy winning artist and human rights advocate, Linda Ronstadt.

“Today, the three most experienced immigrants’ and civil rights legal organizations nationwide – MALDEF, ACLU and NILC – announce their partnership, together with local Arizona-based counsel, to challenge SB1070 in court,” said MALDEF President and General Counsel Thomas A. Saenz.

“The Arizona community can be assured that a vigorous and sophisticated legal challenge will be mounted, in advance of SB1070′s implementation, seeking to prevent this unconstitutional and discriminatory law from ever taking effect.”

“This law will only make the rampant racial profiling of Latinos that is already going on in Arizona much worse,” said Alessandra Soler Meetze, Executive Director of the ACLU of Arizona. “If this law were implemented, citizens would effectively have to carry ‘their papers’ at all times to avoid arrest. It is a low point in modern America when a state law requires police to demand documents from people on the street.”

Linton Joaquin, General Counsel of NILC, added, “This unconstitutional law sends a strong message to all immigrants to have no contact with any law enforcement officer. The inevitable result is not only to make immigrants more vulnerable to crime and exploitation, but also to make the entire community less safe, by aggressively discouraging witnesses and victims from reporting crimes.”

There are a number of serious constitutional problems with the law, the groups say. It violates the supremacy clause by interfering with federal immigration power and authority. The law also unlawfully invites racial profiling against Latinos and other people of color.

“What we are witnessing today is the blatant targeting of an entire American population, Latinos,” stated civil rights leader Dolores Huerta. “We must not give in one inch to Arizona’s effort to blame our community for all the ills of the state or their efforts to run us out. We have worked this land, built and maintained these buildings and sacrificed as much as any other. We must put an end to SB1070.”

“My family, of both German and Mexican heritage, has a long history in Arizona. It has been our diverse and shared history in this state that unites us and makes us stronger,” stated Linda Ronstadt. “What Governor Brewer signed into law last week is a piece of legislation that threatens the very heart of this great state. We must come together and stop SB1070 from pitting neighbor against neighbor to the detriment of us all.”

The promotions for this new show, as well as the show itself, have managed to recklessly imply that the U.S. and Mexico are at war, that the U.S.-Mexico border is a terrorism hot spot, that undocumented immigrants are the terrorists attempting to infiltrate this country, and that U.S. border agents are our soldiers ensuring national security and justice.

These implications are false and dangerous.

What “Border Wars” will not show you are fleeing immigrants being shot, immigrant children being separated from their families, and immigrants being forced to return to lives that include poverty, violence, and despair. That is the reality of the U.S.- Mexico border.

The astounding insensitivity of “Border Wars” is compounded by the show’s website which allows browsers to simulate being a border agent “on the line”, promoting violence toward immigrants and vigilante justice.

This show fosters prejudice, hatred, and violence toward all immigrants, regardless of legal status, that lead to hate crimes like the deaths of Luis Ramirez in Pennsylvania and Raul and Brisenia Flores in Arizona. “Border Wars” should not be allowed to influence its 2.9 million viewers in this manner.

If you would like to contact National Geographic about “Border Wars” to express your disappointment and outrage, you may do so here:

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/contact

Or post on the show forum.