The Hernandez Family stands in solidarity with other non violent protesters against anti immigration bills in Congress in Birmingham, Alabama, on Saturday February 22, 2025. At least five bills targeting immigrants were introduced in the 2026 regular session of the Alabama Legislature, but none passed. (Andi Rice for Alabama Reflector)
Immigration consumed the Alabama Legislature in 2025. Not this year.
Lawmakers considered a total of seven bills that would have affected immigrants in several ways, from immigration enforcement to their eligibility to seek elected office. But unlike 2025, when the Legislature passed two immigration-related bills, none of this year’s immigration legislation passed by the time the session concluded Thursday.
For immigrants’ rights groups, that was a relief.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
“We were concerned with any bills that seemed to want to increase penalties, fines and punishments based on someone’s status,” said Carlos E. Alemán, chief executive officer of the Hispanic and Immigrant Center of Alabama, an organization that advocates on behalf of immigrants. “We have processes already in place that are to be applied equally across the population, so we are always concerned when there are any bills that seem to want to punish people for who they are and not what they did.”
Alabama has a relatively small foreign-born population. The U.S. Census estimates that about 4.5% of the state’s population was born in another country, compared to 14.8% nationwide. But state Republicans, following President Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric, have repeatedly introduced measures aimed at punishing immigrants without status, including 2011’s HB 56, which tried to criminalize every aspect of their lives.
Messages were left Friday with Rep. Ernie Yarbrough, R-Trinity; Sen. Chris Elliott, R-Josephine; Sen. Donnie Chesteen, R-Geneva, and Rep. Phillip Pettus, R-Killeen, the sponsors of the bills, nearly all of which had been filed previously.
HB 13, sponsored by Yarbrough, would have allowed local law enforcement to enter into an agreement with the federal government to enforce the country’s immigration laws and received the bulk of the attention from lawmakers.
The bill requires state and local law enforcement to keep and share information about the immigration status of individuals and transfer them to the federal government. It also allows Alabama law enforcement officials to detain people based on suspicion of their legal status.
It was never clear how the proposed bill differed from the federal 287(g) program, which allows federal agencies to recruit local and state law enforcement directly, and which several Alabama law enforcement agencies already participate in. Yarbrough’s bill was on the Senate calendar on Thursday, but did not come to a vote amid a battle over a closed primary bill.
Yarbrough has filed largely the same bill for the past three years, and faced strong opposition from civil rights groups. Brisa Ables, a spokeswoman for the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice, called the death of the bill “a victory for the community.”
“We know that the fight is not over,” she said. “Alabama is still detaining people in significant numbers.”
According to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, an organization that tracks government data related to immigration, as of April 2 the three Alabama facilities known to detain people over immigration charges had a total average daily population of 146.
We have processes already in place that are to be applied equally across the population, so we are always concerned when there are any bills that seem to want to punish people for who they are and not what they did.
– Carlos E. Aleman, chief executive officer, Hispanic and Immigrant Center of Alabama
Immigrant rights groups also had concerns with HB 166, sponsored Rep. Jamie Kiel, R-Russellville, would have authorized police and sheriffs’ deputies to impound the vehicles of people who are caught driving without a license. That bill was approved in the House and in the Senate Finance and Taxation General Fund but ultimately stalled in the upper chamber.
“I am unsure why immigration groups would be opposed to it,” Kiel said in an interview Friday. “As long as people are driving legally, there is no issue. We have driver’s licenses in Alabama and everyone is required to have one to drive legally in the state. Even people who are from outside the country are required to have a license.”
Another bill, SB 45, sponsored by Sen. Chris Elliott, R-Josephine, would have prohibited Alabama law enforcement from recognizing driver’s licenses issued in other states to people “who did not exercise the option of providing proof of lawful presence in the United States when obtaining the license is not valid in this state and does not authorize the holder to operate a motor vehicle in this state.”
The bill did not come to a vote in the Senate.
HB 585, sponsored by Rep. Jennifer Fidler, R-Silverhill, would require stores that wire money, like Western Union, to impose a 1.5% fee for outgoing wire transfers whenever people want to send money to people overseas. That money would then be distributed to local law enforcement to help offset their costs for dealing with people without appropriate legal status. The bill did not come out of committee.
Fidler filed the same bill last year but was not approved because of concerns over whether it was constitutional. That bill authorized a 4% fee on the amount of the transaction to fund several measures to reduce the financial burden from people without proper residency status, according to Fidler, from education to law enforcement.
For this year, Fidler said she reduced the fee to specifically help offset the cost borne by law enforcement.
“The sheriffs’ departments are the ones responsible for collecting all the folks who are here illegally,” Fidler said in an interview on Friday. “It is the sheriffs’ departments who are detaining those people before they go back.”
SB 21, sponsored by Sen. Donnie Chesteen, R-Geneva, prohibited naturalized immigrants from becoming eligible for several offices, including governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, appellate judge and a host of other positions. It was never considered in the State Governmental Affairs Committee in the Senate.
HB 348, sponsored by Rep. Chad Robertson, R-Heflin, would require courts to deny bail for individuals without the proper residency status until they convene a pretrial hearing.
The bill requires that courts deny people bail if there is a chance that they will not return to court for the proceedings and creates the presumption that they are a flight risk, which effectively deny them the chance at bail.
Robertson said he introduced the legislation because a police officer in Heflin was shot by someone who did not have the residency status.
“It is hard to hold somebody once the person posts bail,” Robertson said in an interview on Friday. “A lot of these guys, they come in and they post bail, they are just gone.”
The legislation stalled in the House chamber after it was approved in the House Judiciary Committee.
The final legislation was HB 88, sponsored by Rep. Phillip Pettus, R-Killen, would require that the written portion of driver’s license exams be administered exclusively in English. The legislation stalled in the House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee.
From Alabama Reflector Post Url: Visit
Author: Ralph Chapoco