Alabama

10/10/2011
H.B. 56

ACLU Lens: Alabama in Chaos as Residents Flee After Immigration Law Takes Effect

By Suzanne Ito, ACLU at 10:26am

Alabama has been in a state of utter chaos following a Sept. 28 court ruling upholding some of the worst provisions of the state's harsh anti-immigrant law.

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09/17/2012
HIV/AIDS Discrimination in Prisons

Fear and Loathing Over HIV Must End in Alabama Prisons

By Amanda Goad, LGBT Project at 11:00am

You can’t catch HIV from a toilet seat.

You can’t catch HIV from kitchen utensils.

You can’t catch HIV from everyday contact with the people around you. 

Old news, right? In fact, all of those points were made in Understanding AIDS, the health information pamphlet mailed to every American household by Surgeon General C. Everett Koop in 1988. But apparently the message was lost on folks at the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC). 

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03/15/2012
Juvenile Life Without Parole

Throwaway Kids?

By Tanya Greene, Advocacy and Policy Counsel, ACLU at 1:41pm

Next week the United States Supreme Court will hear arguments in two historic cases. Incredibly, the cases — from Alabama, Miller v. Alabama, and Arkansas, Jackson v. Hobbs — concern the practice, unique to the United States, of imprisoning teenagers for the rest of their natural lives for crimes committed while they were still developing into adulthood. The U.S. stands utterly alone on this one — no other country in the world locks up its children for crimes committed before they could legally drive, join the military, vote or sometimes even get married.

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01/17/2012
H.B. 56

ACLU Client Scott Douglas on The Colbert Report

By Elizabeth Beresford, ACLU at 5:21pm

Last night on The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert interviewed Scott Douglas III, executive director of the Greater Birmingham Ministries. Douglas is a plaintiff in the ACLU and a coalition of civil rights groups’ lawsuit challenging H.B. 56, Alabama’s draconian anti-immigrant law.

In this video, Douglas talks about why he’s a plaintiff in our case:

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11/21/2011
H.B. 56

Help From Washington: Members of Congress See Firsthand the Damage of Alabama’s H.B. 56 And Speak Out

By Sandhya Bathija, Washington Legislative Office at 4:21pm

Today, a congressional delegation traveled to Alabama to see first-hand the devastating effects of H.B. 56.

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11/15/2011
H.B. 56

Some Families Flee, Others Stay Behind and Live in Fear

By Vesna Jaksic, ACLU at 4:50pm

During a visit to Alabama last week, many families told me that they now live in constant fear and are scared to go to work, school or the grocery store.

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08/02/2011
Search And Seizure

ACLU Lens: Justice Department Sues to Block Alabama Immigration Law Previously Challenged by ACLU

By Steve Gosset, ACLU at 10:13am

The government has filed a suit against Alabama’s draconian anti-immigrant law, which it said conflicts with federal laws and makes it too easy for police to detain people suspected of being in the country illegally.

Modeled on Arizona’s infamous SB 1070 but taking it to even greater extremes, the Alabama law is considered the most pernicious of a series of state anti-immigrant laws passed this year.

The Justice Department lawsuit filed Monday comes on the heels of a class-action challenge filed last month by the ACLU and a coalition of other civil rights organizations charging the law is unconstitutional on multiple grounds. On July 21, the coalition filed a request that the court block the law from taking effect, pending a final ruling on the law’s constitutionality.

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