Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Sharon Blackburn blocked Alabama's immigration law for up to 30 days, saying more time is needed to consider various challenges to the statute. Most of the statute's provisions were scheduled to become law on Thursday. The federal judge will consider the legality of the new law and rule on the specific requests for preliminary injunction by September 28. A preliminary injunction would stop some or all of the law from going into effect, but would not overturn it.
The law, signed by Gov. Robert Bentley on June 9, makes it a state crime to be an undocumented alien in Alabama. It also gives law enforcement the ability to detain those they have "reasonable suspicion" of being in the country illegally, and also provides non-criminal sanctions to businesses that knowingly hire undocumented aliens.
