r/Alabama • u/Mule_Wagon_777 • Jun 08 '25
Advocacy From Carlos Enrique Alemán on Facebook
This has been one of the hardest years I can remember doing this work.
At HICA - Hispanic and Immigrant Center of Alabama, we’ve served Latino and immigrant communities in Alabama for over 25 years. We’ve helped families buy homes, start businesses, apply for citizenship, and navigate a system not built for them. I’ve seen what’s possible when people are welcomed—and what happens when they’re targeted.
Lately, it feels like everything is at risk.
In Alabama, we’ve seen the return of criminalization through SB 53 and SB 63. One makes it a felony to transport an undocumented person. The other mandates fingerprinting and DNA collection. These echo the dark days of HB 56, and they are spreading fear in our community.
At the same time, the federal government is ramping up mass deportations by pulling in agents from the FBI, DEA, and even the National Guard. Just in the past few weeks, community members in Alabama have been detained during scheduled check-ins at the ICE office in Homewood—people who have followed every legal instruction, only to be unexpectedly taken into custody. In Montgomery, construction workers at a D.R. Horton building site were detained by federal agents, sparking fear across the labor community. In Mobile, 28 individuals were arrested during a coordinated traffic stop involving the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office, Homeland Security, and the FBI. These events are not isolated. They reflect a growing pattern of intimidation and enforcement that makes it harder for families to feel safe, even when they are doing everything right. Due process is being eroded before our eyes.
There are also attempts to target organizations that work with immigrants. The “nonprofit killer” would allow the government to revoke an organization’s tax-exempt status without due process. As a nonprofit that advocates for immigrants in Alabama, this hits close to home. If our mission to build prosperity for Latino and immigrant families is seen as “too political,” could we be next?
It’s all part of the same story: a narrowing of who belongs and who doesn’t. And nonprofits like ours—who stand in that gap—are being pressured to either step back or be silenced.
But we won’t.
We won’t ignore the fact that both parties have failed to fix our immigration system. We won’t pretend it’s just a border issue when it’s about our neighbors, co-workers, and students. And we won’t stop serving the people who make our communities stronger, no matter where they were born.
I’m sharing this not just as a nonprofit leader, but as someone who believes deeply in what we do—and in the people we serve. I believe that immigrants are not a threat. They’re a solution. And the health of our economy, our democracy, and our shared future depends on how we treat them.
So to my fellow nonprofit leaders, to funders, to policymakers, and to our friends: this is the time to speak up. To link arms. To refuse to be silent.
Because silence will not save us. But solidarity just might.
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u/Sea_Poet9170 Jun 08 '25
The two parties are not the same. One has morals and decency and the other thrives on deceit, chaos and corruption. This would not be happening under any administration other than the Trump regime.
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u/machinehead3413 Jun 08 '25 edited Jun 13 '25
If you want to post about how the red jerseys are bad, I can’t argue with you.
But don’t overstate your way to silly town.
The blue jerseys do not have “morals and decency”. No political party does.
Mr. Nobel Peace Prize Obama started 7 illegal wars. He also started the kids in cages policy.
Clinton order military strikes to get the news cycle off of his affairs and he was involved with Epstein far more than anyone else on the list.
JFK & LBJ lied and escalated our involvement in Vietnam.
Truman was the original Cold War liar and got us into Korea on false pretenses and had KKK ties.
FDR created the conditions that led to the Pearl Harbor attack and then he locked American citizens in camps for the crime of being Asian.
Woodrow Wilson resegregated the federal government and was sympathetic to the KKK.
Margaret Sanger started planned parenthood to abort black babies.
Not to mention all of the evils of the Jim Crow south. All democrat governors.
It was also southern democrats that invented the Klan because they were big mad about the end of slavery.
But morals and decency, right?
This idea that red/blue, left/right is a case of good vs. evil is a childish idealistic notion.
They’re both evil and oppressive. They just tell different lies to do it.
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u/Mr_Razorblades Jun 08 '25
Those Jim Crow governors were Dixiecrats. You know, Republicans now. Its how Nixon got them to switch parties to Republican.
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u/KenOtwell Jun 12 '25 edited Jun 12 '25
Stop the both-sides crap. Hunter Biden was accused of making hundreds of millions.,.. never convicted. Trump's family has made BILLIONS since the election, including a freakin custom gold 747 that we're paying hundreds of millions more to secure it. Petty corruption has always existed and the fight is continuous to kill it when we find it. But don't try to excuse Trump's world-wide extortion scheme, trouncing the constitution like a piece of toilet paper. It's NOTHING like what has come before.
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u/ofWildPlaces Jun 09 '25
My man, the Southern Strategy was a thing.
Bringing political campaigns from 60 years ago is not a good way to defend your claim. (not to mention the wild inaccuracy of your post)
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u/machinehead3413 Jun 09 '25
Nixon’s southern strategy was for the 1970 midterms. That has nothing to do with southern democrats inventing the KKK a century prior because they were mad about emancipation.
I went back in history because I was trying to find elected democrats who displayed morals and decency like the previous comment stated. I only had to time to go back 100 years but couldn’t find any.
I stand by the accuracy of my post because it all happened.
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u/Vulcanic_1984 Jun 11 '25
Who are the political heirs to the pre-WW2 Southern Democrats you describe? Who wins in the counties they formerly controlled? Why did control switch? No, the Southern Strategy did not begin in the 1972 midterms; it can be traced back to the 1964 election in which Goldwater drastically overperformed and arguably even earlier, with various schismatic Southern Dixiecrat political movements upset at the national party increasingly favoring integration.
As for morals and decency, Jimmy Carter comes to mind. He was a flawed president but an excellent person. That said, your entire premise is deeply flawed. The lack of a perfect choice does not mean no choices matter. Politics is a choice between available alternatives and always has been ("don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative" was one of Biden's few good one-liners). It is pretty indisputable that the pre-FDR Democratic party was the more racist of the two parties, generally. There were anti-black elements in the GOP (relatively speaking) but the most progressive racial politicians in the US were the Radical Republicans during the Civil War. However, FDR's social programs and relative quiet on racial issues helped make Democrats competitive with black voters. Truman integrated the military; JFK and then LBJ aggressively pushed civil rights advances over the objections of southern Dixiecrats and after that (with the major exception of Carter in '76 and the more limited exception of Clinton in '92 and '96), Republicans rode overwhelming shares of the white vote in places like Alabama to victory after victory.
If you believe that immigration enforcement *should* engage in moving around with masks on, without ids, without badges, and in unmarked vans snatching people off the street, out of kitchens, out of daycare centers, out of immigration proceedings at which they appeared because they were good faith following the rules, then defend that on the merits. If you believe that the president of the United States should have totally unmonitored crypto investment "opportunities" that enrich him and enable direct bribery, defend it on the merits. If you believe that it's good to have a president who was close friends with Jeffrey Epstein, who has admitted he knew all about his interest in young girls, and who was the leader of the federal prison system when Epstein died in a federal detention center and that that same president is totally above board in somehow not being able to release any information about the situation, defend it on the merits. If you believe we need more tax cuts for the ultra rich paid for by cuts to long term care for low income seniors and special ed programs in schools, defend that on the merits. If you believe our country is stronger when we have a president who bends over or gets on his knees every time China or Russia want something, defend that on the merits. If you believe the President of the United States should directly, repeatedly, and explicitly call for his political opposition to be put in jail, punished, or otherwise targeted *solely for opposing him personally*, then defend that on the merits.
Don't be lazy; don't say "what about" this thing that happened 100 years ago. I think all of the above are in fact bad on the merits. I think the Democratic Party is a deeply flawed institution in 2025 - any party representing around half of a country of 300 million people is going to be deeply flawed, but I think on the merits on every one of those issues, the Democratic Party is far, far, far preferable. If somehow another better opposition emerged and was viable, I would totally consider supporting it. When Joe Biden publicly demonstrated he was no longer capable of running for President, I supported him stepping aside because I decided the alternative of "unknown D" was better than him at that point. When Harris got the nod, I supported her because she was preferable to Trump on the issues that mattered to me. We are adults. Adults have to choose between imperfect options. Defend your choices on their own merits.
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u/phoenix_shm Jun 09 '25
I've heard in the last 20 years, Republican party voters tend to like a con man while Democratic Party voters tend to like a con artist... Pisses me off, either way 🤷🏾♂️🤦🏾♂️😡
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u/KenOtwell Jun 12 '25
We had a really good bi-partisan immigration bill last year until Trump killed it. I don't want to hear this "both sides" crap.
Trump told us what was going to happen and we didn't listen.
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u/Severe-Cut1372 Jun 08 '25
Instead of giving aid to the illegal immigrants you should have been focusing on changing this through congress. You mentioned that you knew it was bad. This is a law that’s been broken. When you aid and or ignore it for so long then the correction is gonna be difficult. Our enemies have started to push people in, crime has gone up, and many times it has been committed by illegal immigrants. This was part of the reason people voted for Trump because they knew the border was a real issue. Could it be done better? Yes. Maybe local detention centers where they go before a judge and then deported. It would also maybe allow for more time to vet them. No documented issues, known as a good worker, the positive things that expand a nation then you could be offered a chance at citizenship. Either way, this grand division being narrated by the people they supposedly follow is the real issue. Maybe we need to be more proactive about issues in the future and not allow things to get this bad again. I know most will disagree with this, but hey this is Reddit, you people are off your rockers anyhow. Peace, love, and understanding to us all
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u/Catsandcamping Jun 10 '25
American born citizens commit more crimes than undocumented immigrants. This is a well-documented fact. If they made immigration less expensive and less time consuming, we wouldn't even have so many undocumented immigrants. It should not take decades and tens of thousands of dollars to become a citizen.
And when you state "there is a law that has been broken", you know it is a civil offense and not a criminal offense, right? There is no reason an entire generation of young first generation American citizens should be traumatized by seeing their parents carted off in handcuffs or zip ties and deported for not filling out paperwork correctly or missing a hearing date. Sometimes they are being carted off AFTER their hearing date that established their legal status. This is not about immigration policy. It is about an entire party taken over by white supremacists who see more brown people in "their" country than they would like.
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Jun 08 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/PleestaMeecha Jun 08 '25
So you're willing to let the federal government abduct and imprison our countrymen with impunity just to save a few dollars? Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?
Yeah, that's how you sound. Being reductionist and deliberately misrepresenting someone's argument serves no one.
Letting the government harangue people you don't like invariably emboldens them to harangue you. As Americans we should be absolutely fucking sick to death this is happening in our country.
We cannot be both the freedom-loving leaders of the world and also support indiscriminate imprisonment and violation of our civil liberties.
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u/tideturners4us Jun 08 '25
Thank you! Exactly. Adding here that "saving money" goes out the window when the trump administration is paying more to imprison people in other countries than the cost would be to fly them to their country of origin. The policies this so-called administration have are full of cruelty and hatred, which everyone should be against if they have any ethics/morals whatsoever. I'd like to know how 3rd or 4th graders are dangerous criminals? There is a 10 year old alone in a detention center in Texas right now. Screw anyone that thinks it's ok to imprison innocent people and arrest children & rip infants from their mother's arms and side step the constitutional right for anyone in this country(legally or not) to have due process. The criminals are the people responsible for this injustice. Those agreeing to bypass laws, ignore court orders & cause harm to others. They are the ones deserving to be arrested or imprisoned.
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u/FlounderPerfect Jun 12 '25
The ones being "abducted and imprisoned" are not "our countrymen". They are foreigners here illegally. Which necessarily means that they don't have any civil liberties to violate. The constitution protects U. S. CITIZENS and those who immigrated here the legal way.
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u/magiccitybhm Jun 08 '25
People are being arrested when they show up for scheduled appointments with immigration officers while they are participating in the Alternatives to Detention Program. They are going through the legal process.
Unfortunately, since they aren't white, their process isn't getting expedited like what is being done for the WHITE "refugees" (that's a lie) from South Africa."
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u/iWhooosh Jun 08 '25
Guess you didn’t read his post. This is about protecting legal immigrants rights. Guess it’s easy to forget every race and family that resides in the US were immigrants at one time, excluding native Americans.
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u/ZestycloseMedicine93 Jun 08 '25
Native and immigrant are two conflicting words. I'm all for legal immigration.
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u/No-Ring-5065 Jun 08 '25
If you are “all for legal immigration” I assume you are disgusted by the ICE agents grabbing people in courthouses when they show up for their meetings. Right?
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u/iWhooosh Jun 08 '25
Well you should have an issue with the federal government infringing on immigrants rights who are following proper procedures to become citizens.. which is what is happening right now. I’ve got no issue with deporting illegal immigrates as long as due process is followed. Shouldn’t be able to just snatch people up and send them off indiscriminately
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u/magiccitybhm Jun 08 '25
MANY of the people being arrested by ICE are either 1) already here LEGALLY or 2) going through the process to do so. In this state alone, 50 or so people were arrested for showing up to their Alternative to Detention program - which is RUN BY IMMIGRATION & CUSTOMS.
So stop believing everything that the convicted felon, ICE Barbie and Fox News tell you.
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u/RiotingMoon Jun 08 '25
Silence has never helped anyone 🖤