Toughest Immigration Law Yet Takes Effect in Alabama

Digital Vision/Thinkstock(BIRMINGHAM, Ala.) -- What is widely considered the toughest anti-immigration law in America went into effect in Alabama Thursday, a crackdown so severe that some have described it as the Arizona law on steroids.

The law, which was approved by the state legislature and is widely backed by voters, allows police to check for papers and detain undocumented residents without bail. It also mandates that public schools share with authorities the citizenship status of all newly enrolled students.

"We have the strongest immigration law in this country," said. Gov. Robert Bentley.

Across Alabama on Thursday demonstrators were furious.

"To me it says that our government promotes racism," said one protester.

"We have to move. We have to leave everything," a woman said tearfully.

At Center Point High School in Birmingham, principal Van Phillips says several students came to him Thursday morning worried he was going to kick them out.

"I'm not INS!" He said. "It's not my job to police who's legal, who's illegal."

"I couldn't sleep last night," said Alejandro, a student at Center Point. "This morning I was worried the cops would be here waiting for me and send me away."

Educators say they've been put in a tough spot and that under the law all they plan to do is report information.

"We are turning no one away, no one is being asked to withdraw," said Jefferson County School Superintendent Phil Hammonds.

ABC News spoke with one parent who pulled her nephew out of school Thursday. She is undocumented and said they're moving to California on Friday.

"We don't want to move, but this thing we can do nothing about it," she said. "We're people, we're humans."

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Judge Upholds Parts of Alabama's Immigration Enforcement Law

Hemera/Thinkstock(BIRMINGHAM, Ala.) -- A federal judge has cleared the way for Alabama to have the toughest immigration enforcement law in the nation beginning Thursday.

In ruling that "the United States has not met the requirements for a preliminary injunction," U.S. District Judge Sharon Blackburn on Wednesday upheld key parts of the statute that allows cops to ask anyone they detain or arrest to verify U.S. citizenship.

During routine traffic stops, police can also arrest someone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant.

Furthermore, Blackburn cleared the way for schools to verify a student's immigration status.

The judge still hasn't reached a final decision on other provisions that the Obama administration wants her to overturn.  They include forbidding an illegal immigrant from looking for work or making it a crime to transport or harbor an illegal immigrant.  Blackburn suggested that the Justice Department might have a legitimate argument on these and other points that they are preempted by federal law.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Church or Jail? Alabama Alternative to Incarceration Program on Hold

Stockbyte/Thinkstock(BAY MINETTE, Ala.) -- A Bay Minette, Ala., alternative to an incarceration program that asks first-time, nonviolent offenders to choose between church or jail was slated to start Tuesday but is being delayed for legal review by city officials, said Bay Minette Mayor Jamie Tillery.

"The city will ask the Alabama Attorney General to review the program as well. The city will reserve further comment until these reviews have been completed," Tillery wrote in an email to ABC News.

The Restore Our Community program, called Operation ROC, was developed for those convicted of first-time misdemeanors, offering them the opportunity to either attend church once a week for a year and answer questions about the services or go to jail and pay a fine. Right away, the program sparked controversy.

While Tillery said the first-time misdemeanor offenders would be offered a "menu of options," including community service, the American Civil Liberties Union stepped in to say church should not be among them.

"Even if the city offers other sentencing alternatives that are comparable to Operation ROC, which is far from clear, the First Amendment still prohibits the government from becoming entangled in core religious exercise, which includes attending church," ACLU attorney Heather Weaver told ABC News. "The government may not serve as a conduit for church recruitment."

The ACLU would continue to investigate ROC, Weaver said, "to determine what additional steps should be taken."

On Monday, the ACLU sent a letter to Tillery, Bay Minette city council members and the chief of police, asking that the city end the ROC program and consider nonreligious alternatives to incarceration.

Both federal and state courts have ruled that government officials "can't make going to church or participating in religious activities part of an offender's probation, parole or sentence," said Weaver.

In the ACLU's letter, which cited the First Amendment's anti-coercion clause that states "no person can be punished...for church attendance or nonattendance," it argued that the state of Alabama would be compelling people to go to church if it institututed the ROC program.

Bay Minette Police Chief Mike Rowland did not return calls or respond to emails from ABC News Tuesday, but he told local TV station WKRG, "We believe it is legal. We believe it is a great program. We're going to stick with this and we're going to move forward with it."

The ACLU, however, said that Bay Minette officials weren't offering offenders a constitutional choice.

Judges in Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Virginia have offered offenders the opportunity to go to church instead of jail, but state courts have ruled those decisions unconstitutional.

If Alabama does permit the ROC program to offer church as an alternative to fines and jail, Weaver said the ACLU might pursue litigation.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Natalee Holloway's Mom: Daughter Not Dead

Mark Wilson/Getty Images(BIRMINGHAM, Ala.) -- The mother of Natalee Holloway, an Alabama teen who disappeared in Aruba six years ago, will fight a petition by the girl's father to declare Natalee legally dead.

Beth Holloway will go to court Friday to challenge her ex-husband Dave Holloway's petition for presumption of death, filed in probate court in Birmingham, Ala., in June. Natalee Holloway vanished on May 30, 2005, more than six years ago, at age 17.

Dave Holloway claimed in the court papers that because Natalee has not been seen or heard from, and there is no reason to believe she is alive any longer, the time has come to declare her legally dead.

Beth Holloway will oppose that petition in court, according to a statement by her attorney, in which he called Dave Holloway's actions "inexplicable."

"Beth gave birth to and raised Natalee, and will always hope and pray for Natalee's safe return," said her attorney, John Q. Kelly, in a statement. "If Dave seeks closure on such a personal and sensitive matter, it should be respected, but not imposed upon Beth in such an adversarial and public manner."

The two sides are due in court Friday.

Beth Holloway referred questions to her attorney, who did not return calls.

Dave Holloway could not be reached for comment.

Beth Holloway has been relentless in her efforts to find out what happened to her daughter, even slipping into a Peruvian prison to confront Joran van der Sloot, the Aruban man suspected of killing Natalee.

At one point, she agreed to a sting, seemingly complying with van der Sloot's demand for cash in exchange for information about the location of her daughter's body. The transaction was monitored by Aruba authorities, but van der Sloot left the island before the FBI filed extortion charges.

Before van der Sloot could be arrested on extortion, he was arrested in Peru and charged with killing a woman, Stephany Flores Ramirez, on May 30, 2010, the fifth anniversary of Natalee's disappearance. He has been in a Peruvian prison since.

Natalee Holloway was on the last day of a graduation trip to Aruba with her senior class at Mountain Brook High School in Alabama when she did not return to her hotel.

She was last seen in a car with several people, including van der Sloot.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Mom Drops Kids at Barnes & Noble During Errands, Now Faces Prison

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images(DOTHAN, Ala.) -- An Alabama mother who dropped her two young children off at a Barnes & Noble while she ran errands in town now faces as much as six years in prison for child endangerment.

Charlene Sutherland, of Headland, Ala., was charged with six counts of misdemeanor endangering the welfare of a child after leaving her son and daughter, 11 and 6 years old, at a Barnes & Noble in Dothan, Ala., in July. The police allege that Sutherland left the children there unattended for seven hours on three separate occasions, while Sutherland said she would occasionally let the children go there to read while she ran errands.

"My children were home for the summer, not going to school, and one of the things they love to do, they love to read," Sutherland said. "They tell me all about the how the store has a children's section and they can read the books and leave them there so I don't have to buy them, which, frankly, I couldn't afford to do."

Sutherland said her son, Eli, 11, is an avid reader, and she dropped him off a couple of times with his older brother, Nigel, 16, to read while she ran errands in town. On one occasion, the boys' little sister, Faith, 6, wanted to go.

"They go to day care every day, Faith and [youngest son] Noah, and on this particular day Nigel and Ely wanted to go to the bookstore and Faith accompanied them there, and this got blown totally out of proportion," Sutherland said. "Faith is like, she doesn't meet any strangers, so because of the personality Faith has, she might say hi to another girl, and make someone wonder, 'Where's her mom?'"

Sutherland said she dropped off the children at Barnes & Noble after lunch at around 1 p.m., and estimated that she was back to pick them up in about an hour. When she arrived, she found out the children had been taken by Department of Human Resources officials back to the family's home in Headland, she said.

The police, however, said that Sutherland dropped the kids off around 10 a.m. and picked them up between 5 and 6 p.m. at least three times over a two-week period, according to Dothan police Sgt. Rachel David.

Employees in the store said the children were well-behaved, but after the children were dropped off a third time they decided to call police.

"They're a family friendly business, but they are certainly not set up for the liabilities that a day care [center] would incur," David said.

A police investigator and an investigator from the juvenile investigative unit went to the store and spoke with employees, and then issued a warrant for Sutherland's arrest, David said. The 41-year-old mother was arrested at a roadblock when police ran her license and saw warrants for her arrest, according to David.

Because the crime is a misdemeanor it will go before municipal court, and the maximum penalty is a year for each count. The case will be heard on Oct. 12, Sutherland said.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Alabama Anti-Immigration Law the Bane of Farmers' Agricultural Existence

Photos dot com/Thinkstock(HUNTSVILLE, Ala.) -- Civil rights attorneys and activists have sued to block an Alabama law that they claim would usurp federal immigration rules and position commercial farmers to replace migrant workers with employer-sponsored guest workers who would be relegated to a kind of indentured servitude.

Farmers also are protesting the measure, which trails a week-old Georgia law that makes presenting false documents to secure a job a felony.

The Alabama law, approved last month and set to take effect Sept. 1, bars undocumented immigrants from enrolling in or attending college and applying for or soliciting work. It restricts landlords from renting property to the undocumented, and requires school districts to determine the immigration status of schoolchildren.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Huntsville Friday, claims the Alabama law is of "unprecedented reach."

The lawsuit said, "Individuals who may be perceived as 'foreign' by state or local law enforcement agents will be in constant jeopardy of harassment and unlawfully prolonged detention by state law enforcement officers."

Mary Bauer, legal director for the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the lead groups in the coalition that filed the suit, said, "This law revisits the state's painful racial past and tramples the rights of all Alabama residents. It should never become the law of the land."

The Rev. Dr. Ellin Jimmerson, a Huntsville preacher-activist and filmmaker, took issue with the provisions in the law affecting school children. "The idea of parents having to provide information on their own children -- and you do have parents who are here legally but their children are not -- is just a bad idea," she said.

Farmers in Alabama and Georgia have dismissed the new laws as unduly harsh and threatening to the region's migrant-dependent agricultural economy. "Farmers are law-abiding citizens," said Jeff Helm, spokesman for the Alabama Farmers Federation, which represents 48,000 farmers. "They want to do what is right."

"But they are concerned, one, that even the workers who are here legally would flee the state out of concern for what the law means. And, two, farmers [want assurance] that if they follow the law, but there's some breakdown in the system, that they won't suffer criminal repercussions....We believe these issues are better handled at the federal level."

Filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, the class-action suit also lists as plaintiffs the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Alabama, the National Immigration Law Center, the Asian Law Caucus and the Asian American Justice Center. The collective calls Alabama's the most extreme of what are now five sweeping anti-immigration state laws. Others have passed in Utah, Indiana and Arizona. All are being challenged in court.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Family Dies after Small Plane Crashes in Alabama

Stockbyte/Thinkstock(DEMOPOLIS, Ala.) -- A family of at least seven were killed after a small plane went down in Alabama Saturday evening.

According to Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Holly Baker, the Cessna C421 -- which was traveling from St. Louis, Missouri to Destin, Florida -- crashed at 6:34 p.m. near Demopolis Municipal Airport after it lost its right engine.

Marengo County Coroner Stuart Eatmon said the plane landed upside down in a remote region, burning almost completely after it went down.  Authorities could not reach the site until 2:17 a.m. on Sunday, Baker said.

Once there, officials recovered the bodies of seven victims -- two adults and five children, according to Eatmon.  He added that an extra skull belonging to a two-and-a-half year old was found, possibly indicating an eighth family member that died.

An investigation is underway to determine the cause of the crash.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Phil Campbells Come Together to Rebuild Phil Campbell, Ala.

Julie Denesha/Getty Images(PHIL CAMPBELL, Ala.) -- In its time of need, the town of Phil Campbell, Ala., is receiving help from people from around the globe who share its name.

The small town, made up of 300 families, was named after a British railroad engineer who gave the town its start in the 1880s. Most years, Phil Campbells come from around the world to meet in Alabama in June, but with half of the families there left homeless from devastating tornadoes, and 26 people killed, it just didn't feel like time for a party.

This year the Phils have come from such places as Nottingham, U.K., Round Rock, Texas, and La Farge, Wis. to clean up and rebuild churches, homes and schools.

Nine-year-old Alliyah Baker and her mother, Selena, lost everything. She said it felt as if the world forgot, until the Phils came to town.

"They've helped us," said her mother. "They've helped a lot. More than they'll probably ever know."

One Phil Campbell, from Brooklyn, N.Y., hopes to raise $70,000 in donations from the city.

The Phils have brought the residents of this town hope.

"I get tears in my eyes just thinking about it," said Kevin Lacey, one worker in the town. "Most of thems not even close to being from around here."

Neighbors with tears in their eyes because someone from so far away cared so much.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Alabama Governor Signs Tough Anti-Immigration Law

Governor [dot] Alabama [dot] gov(MONTGOMERY, Ala.) -- Until Thursday, Arizona had what many believed was the strictest anti-illegal immigration law in the nation.  But not anymore.

Over the objections of civil rights groups, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley signed legislation that prevents illegal immigrants from either enrolling in or attending college, prohibits them from applying for or soliciting work, and makes it illegal for landlords to rent them property.

By contrast, Arizona's law imposes penalties on employers who hire undocumented aliens.  The most controversial part of that statute -- allowing police to question citizenship status during a reasonable arrest -- is currently blocked and will be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Alabama's law permits police to make a "reasonable attempt" to ascertain a person's citizenship and immigration status during any lawful "stop, detention or arrest."

The American Civil Liberties Union announced immediately after the Alabama governor signed the law that it would file a lawsuit to stop it.  Al Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, said Alabama's law would create "a modern-day trail of tears for immigrants in the state."

On the other hand, many are praising the law, including noted social conservative Phyllis Schlafly, who said Alabama had turned into "the leader in comprehensive immigration reform."

It's estimated there are 120,000 undocumented aliens among Alabama's population of 4.9 million people, most of them Latinos.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

One Month Later, Alabama Tornado Recovery Slow

ABC News(TUSCALOOSA, Ala.) -- More than a month after devastating tornadoes hit Tuscaloosa, Alabama, killing more than 300 people, little rebuilding has been done and several survivors are still living in shelters.

In fact, five people are still reported missing weeks after a tornado cut a six-mile-wide hole in the heart of Tuscaloosa.

While most residents said that the federal government appeared quickly and came to the rescue, they said the government is starting to move more slowly these days.

"America should definitely not forget about us," Tuscaloosa resident Naomi Wilson told ABC News.  "These people in this area are going to be needing help for so long."

Tuscaloosa Mayor Walter Maddox, who has not taken a day off since the tragic storm, told ABC News that rebuilding can't begin while debris is still being moved off roads.

"You just can't change this overnight," he said.  "Even though the damage that was sustained to Tuscaloosa took six minutes, it's probably going to take us six years to fully recover."

Nearly 7,000 homes were destroyed when the tornado hit on April 27, but many people are still homeless.  Close to 100 residents are still staying in the last open shelter, which will be closed next week.

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