South Carolina passed an extreme anti-immigrant law in 2011. The law required police to demand “papers” demonstrating citizenship or immigration status during traffic stops when they have “reasonable suspicion” that a person is an undocumented immigrant. It also criminalized everyday interactions with undocumented immigrants. The SPLC joined a coalition of civil rights groups in filing a federal class action lawsuit challenging the law as unconstitutional. A settlement reached in 2014 blocked major provisions of the law.
Showing 623 Results
Features and Stories
The Southern Poverty Law Center and a coalition of civil rights groups today launched a legal challenge to South Carolina’s anti-immigrant law, charging it is unconstitutional, invites racial profiling and interferes with federal law.
Features and Stories
Since the Southern Poverty Law Center established a hotline last week to report issues with Alabama’s new anti-immigrant law, we have received more than 1,000 calls, illustrating clearly that the law is on the verge of creating a humanitarian crisis for immigrants in the state – regardless of their immigration status.
Features and Stories
The Southern Poverty Law Center and the coalition of civil rights groups challenging Alabama’s extreme anti-immigrant law today filed a notice of appeal and an emergency request asking the U.S. district court to temporarily block several provisions not previously enjoined by the court’s orders of September 28, while the decision is appealed.
Features and Stories
A federal court today blocked significant elements of Alabama’s new anti-immigrant law – the nation’s most extreme – but also left large parts in place, undermining the most fundamental American values of fairness and equality and devastating thousands across the state, including citizens, lawful immigrants and immigrants without lawful status alike.
Features and Stories
The Southern Poverty Law Center asked members of Congress today to oppose legislation that would greatly expand one of the nation’s guestworker programs and shred protections for both guestworkers and U.S. workers.
Features and Stories
We filed a motion for summary judgment because the sheriff’s office simply does not have the right to enforce immigration law. But since 2007, deputies have been interrogating detainees about their immigration status and recommending their deportation to federal agents.
Features and Stories
The debt ceiling debate is consuming all of the oxygen in Washington these days, but there’s another economic issue that Congress would be wise to resolve – and soon, before more damage is done to our recovering but still brittle economy. That issue is immigration reform.
Features and Stories
The Southern Poverty Law Center and a coalition of other civil rights groups asked a federal judge to block Alabama’s anti-immigrant law from taking effect Sept. 1.
Alabama passed an extreme anti-immigrant law in June 2011. The law threatened to chill children’s access to public schools by requiring school officials to verify the immigration status of children and their parents; authorized police to demand “papers” demonstrating citizenship or immigration status during traffic stops; and criminalized Alabamians for everyday interactions with undocumented individuals. The SPLC led a coalition of civil rights groups in filing a federal class action lawsuit that resulted in an agreement that effectively gutted the law.
