{"id":23439,"date":"2025-04-25T16:18:30","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T16:18:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.insurancejournal.com\/?p=821379"},"modified":"2025-04-25T16:18:30","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T16:18:30","slug":"alabama-house-advances-bill-to-let-police-enforce-immigration-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/2025\/04\/25\/alabama-house-advances-bill-to-let-police-enforce-immigration-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"Alabama House Advances Bill to Let Police Enforce Immigration Laws"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.insurancejournal.com\/img\/social\/opengraph\/ij-social-default-1200x630.png\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<ul class=\"nav nav-tabs tabs tabs-entry\">\n<li class=\"active\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.insurancejournal.com\/news\/southeast\/2025\/04\/25\/821379.htm\">Article<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.insurancejournal.com\/news\/southeast\/2025\/04\/25\/821379.htm?comments\" rel=\"nofollow\">0 Comments<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"article-content clearfix\">\n<p>MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) \u2014 Alabama lawmakers advanced legislation last week that would allow local law enforcement to enforce immigration law, as conservative legislators push for increased alignment with the federal government\u2019s crackdown on immigration.<\/p>\n<p>The bill was dubbed \u201cLaken Riley Act,\u201d named after the 22-year-old Augusta University student who was killed last year in Georgia by an undocumented immigrant. President Donald Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/what-is-laken-riley-act-trump-immigration-2667d626139ddf5a16d1533516eab18f\">signed a similar law<\/a> into affect in January that requires the detention of unauthorized immigrants accused of theft and violent crimes.<\/p>\n<div class=\"bzn bzn-sized bzn-intext\">\n<ins data-revive-zoneid=\"79\" data-revive-topics=\"law-enforcement\" data-revive-companies data-revive-block=\"1\" data-revive-id=\"36eb7c2bd3daa932a43cc2a8ffbed3a9\"><\/ins> <\/div>\n<p>House Bill 7 is now in the Senate Judiciary Committee. If signed into law, the Alabama version of the bill will allow local and state law enforcement agencies to enter into agreements with federal agencies to enforce the country\u2019s immigration laws.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s simply a common-sense grassroots approach to help enforce already existing laws that are on the books in our community,\u201d said the bill\u2019s sponsor, Republican Rep. Ernie Yarbrough.<\/p>\n<p>The bill drew swift rebuke from the House of Representative\u2019s Democratic minority.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Chris England said the bill would make profiling inevitable because he said officers are more likely to detain nonwhite people who don\u2019t speak English. He added that the stakes are higher given the increasing frequency of detentions <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/abrego-garcia-trump-salvador-due-process-a1265923d0188dc375b01205a0742ac2\">without a trial<\/a> across the country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe constitution can\u2019t be situational, it can\u2019t be circumstantial, it cannot only be when it benefits me. You have to abide by the principles in it, even when you don\u2019t want to,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Yarbrough denied that the bill would encourage racial profiling, and he pointed to amendments to the bill that would require officers to check immigration status instead of nationality when someone is arrested.<\/p>\n<div class=\"bzn bzn-sized bzn-intext-2\">\n<ins data-revive-zoneid=\"162\" data-revive-topics=\"law-enforcement\" data-revive-companies data-revive-block=\"1\" data-revive-id=\"36eb7c2bd3daa932a43cc2a8ffbed3a9\"><\/ins> <\/div>\n<p>\u201cThe bottom line is that this bill isn\u2019t aimed at vilifying immigrants \u2013 it\u2019s about the safety of Alabamians,\u201d Yarbrough said.<\/p>\n<p>Still, some Democratic legislators pushed back. They said that it would make communities less safe because it would discourage immigrants from reporting crimes in the community.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Neil Rafferty said that the bill exploits Laken Riley\u2019s name and wouldn\u2019t have prevented her death. \u201cTurning local officers into de facto immigration agents damages their ability to stop crimes,\u201d Rafferty said.<\/p>\n<div class=\"copyright-notice lite\">Copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.<\/div>\n<p class=\"tagtag\"> <span class=\"tagtag\">Topics<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.insurancejournal.com\/law-enforcement\/\" class=\"btn btn-sm btn-primary tagtag\">Law Enforcement<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.insurancejournal.com\/location\/alabama\/\" class=\"btn btn-sm btn-primary tagtag\">Alabama<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"article-poll\" data-post=\"821379\">\n<div class=\"article-poll-vote\">\n<p>Was this article valuable?<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"article-poll-feedback voted-no\">\n<form class=\"feedback-form\">\n<p>Thank you! 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(AP) \u2014 Alabama lawmakers advanced legislation last week that would allow local law enforcement to enforce immigration law, as conservative legislators push for increased alignment with the federal government\u2019s&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[1425,1426,1,1427,45],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/alabama-house-advances-bill-to-let-police-enforce-immigration-laws.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23439"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}