This is an opinion column.
If passed by the Alabama Senate in the waning hours of the current legislative session and signed by Gov. Kay Ivey, HB-210 should be filed under “fixing our own mistake” or “cleaning up our own mess.”
It’s a fat file—stuffed with bills passed that are often a thoughtless solution in search of a perceived, though non-existent problem or a short-sighted, fear-driven, mean-spirited measure created to mollify short-sighted, fear-driven, mean-spirited constituents.
Bills that often evoke unintended consequences. Consequences good for no one. Consequences bad for the state.
Thirteen years ago this month, then-Alabama Governor Robert Bentley signed into law the gawdawful HB-56, anti-brown people legislation borne of the xenophobic notion that immigrants—specifically brown, undocumented immigrants—are ruining America. That they should not be availed the unalienable rights guaranteed by the Declaration of Independence.
That they should not be able to pursue happiness. Not in Alabama.
The law originally allowed police to culturally profile anyone during a traffic stop they suspected of being undocumented—Your papers, please! It prohibited anyone, anyone, from giving a ride (or renting) to an undocumented immigrant, made it illegal for employers to hire anyone they suspected of being undocumented, prohibited undocumented immigrants from applying for work, and required school officials to ascertain a student’s legal status—as if educators didn’t have enough to do in simply educating students.
Let those inane actions— overwhelmingly supported and celebrated by Republican lawmakers, likely over margaritas on Cinco de Mayo—marinate for a moment.
Some of the egregious provisions were eradicated in 2013 with the settlement of a federal lawsuit brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center and other civil rights organizations.
Yet many remained, including this doozy: Undocumented immigrants were prohibited from attending state community colleges or four-year universities. Now, mind you, they could attend and graduate from our K-12 schools but if they dared aspire to a higher level of education: Adios. Not in Alabama.
As is it with so many laws that emerge from a party dead-set on targeting what (or whom) it doesn’t understand or agree with, no one apparently considered the real-world impact of this provision: Brain drain. Young people educated in our schools bolted our state to attend a college and university elsewhere, often in Mississippi or Georgia.
Never to return, more than likely. Why would they?
Alabama lawmakers fed, unintentionally, of course, a lamentable trend that sees Alabama among the worst states in retaining our best and brightest—high-achieving graduates and skilled adults, according to a report from Congress’s Joint Economic Committee. The Alabama Commission on Higher Education (ACHE) launched RETAIN ALABAMA after finding, in 2021, that 43.2 percent of students attending four-year colleges in the state were either likely (as opposed to very likely) or unlikely to remain in the state after graduating. Nearly a fourth (23%) said they were outta here after flipping their tassel.
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While the findings and ACHE’s efforts target college grads, HB-56 ensured the best and brightest brown high-school graduates would not even attend college in Alabama if they were undocumented.
Now, with the state experiencing record-low, among-worst-in-the-nation, workforce participation, lawmakers may finally clean up their mess and offer our undocumented best and brightest an opportunity to excel. Right here. In Alabama.
HB210 by Rep. Reed Ingram, R-Pike Road would allow undocumented residents to go to matriculate at a state college or university if they attended high school for at least three years and graduated or earned a GED certificate or its equivalency. With a caveat: They must be applying for “lawful presence in the United States.”
The bill passed the House 89-10 and is snailing towards a still-possible Senate vote after passing out of committee earlier this week.
Yes, 10 esteemed representatives still want to bar brown undocumented high-school graduates from attending a public college in our state after we’ve invested in educating them.
Adios. Not in Alabama.
I’m a member of the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame and a Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary. My column appears on AL.com, as well as the Lede. Tell me what you think at rjohnson@al.com, and follow me at twitter.com/roysj, or on Instagram @roysj.