Abstract

journalofsocialdistressandthehomeless, Vol. 24 No. 3, November, 2015, 109–115 Alina Camacho-Gingerich Ph.D. and C. Mario Russell, Esq. The anti-immigrant sentiment has been growing nationally for the past several years and has resulted in a series of violent confrontations, human rights violations, and even deaths, as it was described in US News and World Report recently (Fox, 2014). This anti-undocumented immigrant sentiment has led to the passing of a series of laws in several states to “discourage and deter the unlawful entry and presence of aliens and economic activity by persons unlawfully present in the United States,” as specified by SB 1070 in Arizona (2010, Sec. 1). Other states soon followed suit with similar bills (Morse, 2011). Many consider the Alabama bill, HB 56, passed in 2011, the most comprehensive and the most damaging anti-immigration law. It allows, among other things, law enforcement to demand papers and detain anyone they deem to be in the country illegally; it also makes a crime for undocu- mented immigrants to hold a job in Alabama, and to be caught without documen- tation proving status; it makes it illegal to sign a contract with undocumented immigrants, to knowingly rent property to them, and to knowingly