Ala. sheriff: new immigration law "secondary concern"

October 28, 2011

The sheriff of Lee County, Alabama, has said that enforcing the state's new anti-immigration law will be a secondary concern in his county and in many other counties across the state. Sheriff Jay Jones said that a meeting of law enforcement leaders from across the state, which took place in Montgomery on Thursday, highlighted that many of his counterparts shared the same opinion as he had: that officers would focus on enforcing primary actions, like traffic stops, 911 calls and other encounters, before turning to matters thrown up by the new law.
"We wouldn’t go driving down looking for people on the street corner," Jones said. He likened the probable enforcement of it to that of the seatbelt law, which is generally only invoked if a person is found not wearing their belt if they are stopped for another violation, such as speeding.

The law is considered one of the toughest pieces of immigration legislation in the country. Law enforcement officers had raised a number of reservations about it before it took effect at the beginning of this month. They claimed that not only would there not be enough resources to handle enforcement of it, but that it would serve to erode relations with the state's Hispanic communities, and lead to less cooperation and more mistrust of the police.