Editor:

Alabama's immigration law, HB 56, garners a good deal of notoriety,  and rightly so. I cannot think of another law quite like it. Authors of every other law that I know intended to hold people accountable for  their actions.

With our underfunded and overcrowded prisons, I find it  hard to believe that the authors, sponsors, and supporters of HB 56  intended to incarcerate all of the estimated 120,000 men, women and  children here in Alabama illegally. Indeed, by their own admission,  the authors of this law designed it to scare people into leaving our  state.

Generally we expect law enforcement to arrest violators before  they flee our jurisdiction and hold them accountable, but that is not  the case with this law. This law is very peculiar. Supporters of HB 56 argue that it protects taxpayers, despite the fact  that, according to the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, Alabama's illegal immigrants paid an  estimated $130 million in sales, property and income taxes in 2010.

Supporters of this law claim it  secures jobs for legal residents, despite the fact that Dr. Samuel Addy's oft-cited nine-page cost-benefit analysis contradicts them. Supporters of this law assert that the growing size of Alabama's illegal population necessitates the law's severity, the harshest in  the U.S., despite the fact that we have one of the smallest  populations of illegal immigrants. Supporters complain that illegal  immigrants flagrantly flaunt their defiance of federal immigration  law, even though HB 56 fails to hold them accountable for it.

In every  goal this law's supporters set, HB 56 is ineffective at best, and in  many cases, counterproductive – every goal save one. If you want to understand what this law is really about, look at the  one metric that demonstrates its efficacy, the one thing its supporters and detractors agree it does well: scare good men, women  and children into leaving our state.

Fear is not an appropriate  government function. We want people to respect our laws, our  government, our law officers and our teachers, not to fear them. The  difference between respect and fear is the difference between freedom  and oppression. That is why HB 56 is wrong. Its supporters cannot  justify it with jobs. They cannot tweak it with amendments.

At its  very heart, this law is about fear; not jobs, not taxes, not  lawlessness, and that's why it must be repealed—all of it, in its  entirety. No matter how we feel about the size and scope of the immigration  issue, no matter how we feel about illegal immigrants, the law itself  is immoral and has to go.

A prayer/meditation vigil calling for the repeal of HB 56 has been  scheduled for April 24 from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the South Beach Park  in Fairhope just south of the pier. A group of concerned local residents will gather for this prayer/meditation vigil to draw attention to misinformation concerning the law and to call for the law’s repeal. Leaders from various faith-based organizations in  Baldwin and Mobile counties have committed their support and will  attend the vigil.

Brian Willkie Daphne

Karrie Ellis 251-947-7712