Sweet ‘phobe Alabama

Sweet ‘phobe Alabama

by digby

The good news is that Alabama is equal opportunity xenophobic. The bad news is that they aren’t really supposed to be:

A German manager with Mercedes-Benz is free after being arrested for not having a driver’s license with him under Alabama’s new law targeting illegal immigrants, authorities said Friday, in an otherwise routine case that drew the attention of Gov. Robert Bentley.

Tuscaloosa Police Chief Steven Anderson told The Associated Press an officer stopped a rental vehicle for not having a tag Wednesday night and asked the driver for his license. The man only had a German identification card, so he was arrested and taken to police headquarters, Anderson said.

The 46-year-old executive was charged with violating the immigration law for not having proper identification, but he was released after an associate retrieved his passport, visa and German driver’s license from the hotel where he was staying, Anderson said.

The length of his detainment and the status of his court case weren’t immediately known.

Mercedes-Benz, which is a division of Daimler AG, builds sport-utility vehicles at a large plant in Vance, about 20 miles east of Tuscaloosa. The automaker’s decision to open a factory in Alabama in 1993 was considered a major coup for the state’s economic development efforts and launched a trend of other foreign automakers and suppliers who opened major factories in the state, including Honda, Toyota and Hyundai.

Bentley, a Republican who signed the illegal immigration law earlier this year, called the state’s homeland security director, Spencer Collier, after hearing of the arrest to get details about had happened, Collier said in an interview.
[…]
The law — parts of which were put on hold amid legal challenges — requires that police check citizenship status during traffic stops and take anyone who doesn’t have proper identification to a magistrate. Anderson said that’s what was done, but someone in the same situation wouldn’t have been arrested before the law took effect.

“If it were not for the immigration law, a person without a license in their possession wouldn’t be arrested like this,” he said. Previously, drivers who lacked licenses received a ticket and a court summons, the police chief said.

Mexico issued a travel warning to its citizens thinking of visiting Arizona after it passed its draconian immigration law. Maybe European countries should think about doing that for Alabama. It’s clearly a dangerous place to be a foreigner — even if your employer provides thousands of jobs to the locals. But surely they never meant for it to impact a nice German man. (And somehow I really doubt that the GOP leadership and the Governor’s office normally gets involved in these things.)

Meanwhile, I continue to be surprised to learn that individual states have created “homeland security” departments. Why do they need such a thing on top of their state and local police departments, various Federal DHS agencies plus the FBI? Alabama’s DHS web site explains:

The Alabama Department of Homeland Security (AL DHS) was established by an act of the Alabama State Legislature and signed into law by Governor Bob Riley on June 18, 2003. Alabama is the first state in the Nation to create its own legislatively enacted Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security. The head of AL DHS is Director Spencer Collier.

Alabama’s Homeland Security Department is staffed and organized to mirror the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The Alabama Department of Homeland Security is divided into four major functional areas including: Borders, Ports and Transportation; Science and Technology; Information Management and Budget; and Emergency Preparedness and Response.

The mission of the AL DHS is to work with our federal, state, and local partners to prevent acts of terrorism in Alabama, to protect lives and safeguard property, and if required, to respond to any acts of terrorism occurring in Alabama. To accomplish this mission, the Alabama Department of Homeland Security works closely with both public and private sector stakeholders in a wide range of disciplines: law enforcement, emergency management, emergency medical, fire services, public works, agriculture, public health, public safety communications, environmental management, military, transportation, and more.

Since its inception, the Alabama Department of Homeland Security has administered, throughout Alabama, over $100 million in federally appropriated homeland security grants.

Well, there you have it. A brand spanking new police agency with an incredibly broad mandate and a whole lot of money. What’s not to like?