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Alabama house speaker says state will not be ‘sanctuary for illegal aliens’ as appeals court upholds police detention provision Supporters of Alabama’s new immigration law claimed a partial victory on Friday when a federal appeals court upheld a provision that allows police to detain immigrants who are suspected of being in the country illegally. In a temporary ruling, the 11th US circuit court of appeals blocked parts the new law which requires schools to check the immigration status of students and which made it a criminal offence for immigrants not to carry papers to prove their legal status. The court issued the order after the Justice Department challenged what is considered the toughest immigration law in the nation. The opinion also blocked a part of the law that makes it a crime for immigrants to not have proper documentation. But Alabama house speaker Mike Hubbard, who championed the law, the most draconian in the country, said the “most effectual parts” remained in place. “We’ve said from the beginning that Alabama will have a strict immigration law and we will enforce it,” he said. “Alabama will not be a sanctuary state for illegal aliens, and this ruling reinforces that.” The judges also let stand parts of the law that bar state courts from enforcing contracts involving illegal immigrants and make it a felony for an illegal immigrant to do business with the state for basic things like getting a driver’s license. Groups who challenged the law said they were hopeful the judges would eventually block the rest of it. “I think that certainly it’s a better situation today for the people of Alabama today than it was yesterday,” said Omar Jadwat, an attorney for the ACLU, which challenged the law along with the Obama administration. “Obviously we remain concerned about the remainder of the provisions, and we remain confident that we will eventually get the whole scheme blocked.” Alabama Republicans have long sought to clamp down on illegal immigration and passed the law earlier this year after gaining control of the Legislature for the first time since Reconstruction. Governor Robert Bentley signed the measure, saying it was crucial to protect the jobs of legal residents amid the tough economy and high unemployment. The law has already had a deep impact in Alabama since a federal judge upheld much of it in late September. Many frightened Hispanics have been driven away from Alabama, fearing they could be arrested or targeted by police. Construction workers, landscapers and field hands have stopped showing up for work, and large numbers of Hispanic students have been absent from public schools. To cope with the labor shortage, Alabama agriculture commissioner John McMillan at one point suggested farmers should consider hiring inmates in the state’s work-release program. It’s not clear exactly how many Hispanics have fled the state. Earlier this week, many skipped work to protest the law, shuttering or scaling back operations at chicken plants, Mexican restaurants and other businesses. The Justice Department has called the Alabama law a “sweeping new state regime” and urged the appeals court to forbid states from creating a patchwork of immigration policies. The agency also said the law could strain diplomatic relations with Latin American countries, who have warned the law could impact millions of workers, tourists and students in the US The law, it said, turns illegal immigrants into a “unique class who cannot lawfully obtain housing, enforce a contract, or send their children to school without fear that enrollment will be used as a tool to seek to detain and remove them and their family members.” “Other states and their citizens are poorly served by the Alabama policy, which seeks to drive aliens from Alabama rather than achieve cooperation with the federal government to resolve a national problem,” the attorneys have said in court documents. Immigration has become a hot-button issue in Alabama over the past decade as the Hispanic population has grown by 145 percent to about 185,600 people, most of them of Mexican origin. The Hispanic population represents about 4 percent of the state’s 4.7 million people, but some counties in north Alabama have large Spanish-speaking communities and schools where most of the students are Hispanic. Requiring school officials to check the immigration status of students in public schools helped make the Alabama law stricter than similar measures enacted in Arizona, Utah, Indiana and Georgia. Federal judges in those states have blocked all or parts of those laws. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer earlier this year asked the US Supreme Court to resolve the legal fight over her state’s tough immigration law. The Justice Department called the Alabama law a “sweeping new state regime” in court filings last week and urged the appeals court to forbid states from creating a patchwork of immigration policies. The agency also said the law could strain diplomatic relations with Latin American countries, who have warned the law could impact millions of workers, tourists and students in the US “Other states and their citizens are poorly served by the Alabama policy, which seeks to drive aliens from Alabama rather than achieve cooperation with the federal government to resolve a national problem,” the attorneys have said in court documents. Thomas Perez, head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, said Friday before the ruling that a team of attorneys is in Alabama trying to determine whether the law was leading to civil rights violations. The school requirement was an area of particular worry, and the federal government is trying to determine how many absentees and withdrawals might be linked to the law, Perez said. “We’re hearing a number of reports about increases in bullying that we’re studying,” he said after a meeting with leaders and advocates for the Hispanic community. 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