Dean Johnson Comments on Alabama Immigration Law for Huntsville Times
Dean Kevin R. Johnson commented for the Huntsville Times on HB 56, Alabama's new immigration law, often considered the strictest of a set of state laws recently passed to restrict immigration. Dean Johnson said the burgeoning state effort to police immigration may force Congress to enact comprehensive reform.
"The ferment among the states on immigration - as well as the conflicting court decisions - may ultimately provoke Congress to act on comprehensive immigration reform," Johnson said. "It seems to me that the state immigration laws keep coming and will continue to come until the Supreme Court narrowly circumscribes the state's role in immigration enforcement or Congress enacts comprehensive immigration reform."
Kevin R. Johnson is Dean and Mabie-Apallas Professor of Public Interest Law and Chicana/o studies at UC Davis School of Law. He is an internationally recognized scholar in the fields of immigration law and policy, refugee law, and civil rights.