Mischievous in Alabama

México del Norte
Jorge Mújica Murias
mexicodelnorte@yahoo.com.mx


Every once in awhile, the movement in favor of immigrant’s right has brilliant moments.

One of them happened a week ago, with an action by four undocumented parents of as many undocumented youth, paperless each one and all of them, who made a point in defying the new Alabama HB56 Law.

They are now known as the “Alabama 13”, nine youth and four parents who misbehaved so badly and boldly that put into question not only the Alabama law but the so called “new policies on detention and deportation” of Barack Obama’s administration.

A couple of them went on and sit down inside the Capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, requesting to see one of the authors of the infamous law that makes a Migra agent out of every public employee and mandates them to ask for immigration papers to anyone “suspicious” of not having them. The other 11 sat down on the street until they also got arrested.

And that was the point. They could not fail. In theory, the police should arrest them, consider them “suspicious” of not having papers and send them to the Migra, which in turn would have to let them go according to the “new policy” because no one of them had a criminal record.

But it was not to be.

At the Court hearing alter 48 hours in jail, they were accused of “public disorder,” and the Montgomery attorney stated that they all were “legal residents,” even though their defense attorney stated very clearly that they all were in the country without papers. Montgomery’s Mayor Todd Strange stated that they had been arrested for blocking the street only, despite their claims that the police was the one blocking it.

The spokesperson of the Public Security Department, Martha Earnhardt, made it clear that la Migra had not requested them to be held in jail, despite new claims by their defense attorney, Mike Winter, that they all were undocumented. They were set free on bond.


To Win or To Win

The strategy was to win, and somehow there was not a way to lose. The state’s Republican leaders, starting with the Speaker Mike Hubbard, confusedly stated that “They got away with it. They wanted to get arrested and got their wish”.

But no. What they wanted was to defy HB56 and force the estate to enforce it and be sent to la Migra, but la Migra refused to take them in. According to the Pro Tempore President of Alabama’s Senate, Republican Del Marsh, there will not be other charges, unless they are brought up by the Attorney general Luther Strange. Hubbard insisted that “this is a country of laws” and the Alabama law is to make sure every one is here legally, while Marsh says the objective is to create jobs for citizens by prosecuting undocumented immigrants, but neither one of them make sense.

The chance of high-profile-deporting a bunch of undocumented immigrants slipped their hands. They could have, legally, sent their detainees with la Migra, but somehow they did not dare. And if they had, Obama’s administration would have been forced to set them free for not having criminal records.

In other words, the daring immigrants won. They ridiculed the law and exposed the police, the Mayor and the Attorney as not willing to enforce their own law if it means to do it under public scrutiny.

The bad example is very good. Nobody can scare people wanting to fight, as one of the detainees, mi brother Martín Unzueta wrote in a letter left as “inheritance” in case he had to write the next one from México.
The struggle, paraphrasing the old Spanish saying that “the movement shows itself by moving,” shows itself by fighting. The Alabama 13 proved again that if there’s struggle there’s hope. The whole immigration movement should take note and get on with similar actions, instead of selling out promoting again that the solution to immigration lays in electing more “good” Democrats to Congress and in “keeping the White House”

The struggle is in the streets, not in the aisles…