HB 56 — the nation's most draconian anti-immigrant law passed last year. It's meant to torment.

By Kerry Kennedy
On April 25, 1963, my father, Robert F. Kennedy, then the U.S. attorney general, came to Alabama to ask Gov. George Wallace to stop discriminating against black people. That morning, Wallace raised the Confederate battle flag over the Capitol, where he and my father would meet. His answer would be "no."

I was recently invited to dinner at the Alabama Capitol by the state's current governor. I was part of a group led by U.S. Rep. John Lewis that has come to commemorate "Bloody Sunday," the day in 1965 when state troopers beat civil rights marchers as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.


Kerry Kennedy speaks during the 2012 Congressional Wreath Laying at the Civil Rights Memorial.
Thankfully, the Confederate flag no longer flies over the Capitol. It was removed almost 20 years ago to symbolize that Alabama had put its racist days behind it. But, today, a dark shadow hangs over the state nonetheless.

I'm talking about HB 56 — the nation's most draconian antiimmigrant law that was passed last year. It's designed, as its sponsors proudly admit, to torment and terrify undocumented immigrants and their families into "self-deporting." Written by outsiders for a state with, ironically, one of the smallest populations of undocumented immigrants in the country and propelled by debate that used the terms "Hispanic" and "illegal immigrant" interchangeably, the law has had a horrific effect.http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/news/immigration-bill-is-reminder-of-the-past

It seems like the second generation jim crows "ALEC" are leaving their mark....