Saturday, October 29, 2011

Alabama immigration battle recalls civil rights past - Associated Press - POLITICO.com

Alabama immigration battle recalls civil rights past - Associated Press - POLITICO.com: The epicenter of the fight over the nation’s patchwork of immigration laws is not Arizona, which shares a border with Mexico and became a common site for boycotts. Nor was it any of the four states that were next to pass their own crackdowns.

No, the case that’s likely to be the first sorted out by the U.S. Supreme Court comes from this Deep South state, where the nation’s strictest immigration law has resurrected ugly images from Alabama’s days as the nation’s battleground for civil rights a half-century ago.

And Alabama’s jump to the forefront says as much about the country’s evolving demographics as it does the nation’s collective memory of the state’s sometimes violent path to desegregation.