MONTGOMERY, Ala. — After passing the nation’s toughest anti-illegal immigration law in 2011 and having one of its U.S. senators lead the charge against amnesty, Alabama has become well-known for its conservative position on immigration reform. But the national affiliate of Alabama’s teachers union is bucking that trend and praising President Obama’s decision to go around Congress and grant legal status and work permits to roughly five million immigrants in the United States illegally.
The National Education Association (NEA), the official partner of the Alabama Education Association (AEA), hailed the administration’s decision as “bold,” “necessary” and “morally right,” and pledged that educators in Alabama and around the country will continue pushing for Congress to expand on what the President has done.
“(A) growing number of public school students live in fear that our nation’s immigration policies will break up their families, forcing them to choose between their country and their loved ones,” said NEA President Lily Eskelsen García. “That’s why we welcome the president’s proposal to expand Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).”
García also urged the Republican-controlled Congress to pass “comprehensive immigration reform,” which previously passed the Senate, but was blocked by the House.
“As a country, we have an obligation to do what is morally right and just and bring about comprehensive immigration reform now,” she said. “We urge Congress to pass a comprehensive bill that creates a pathway to citizenship for the more than 11 million aspiring Americans; continues to preserve the unity of family, traditional and untraditional; and includes the DREAM Act and DACA. Educators will continue to push to end the harmful paralysis in the U.S. House of Representatives and demand swift action on comprehensive immigration reform.”
In Alabama, the AEA has come under fire from many Republicans who say that it is out of step with its membership, which — like the majority of Alabamians — tends to lean conservative as a whole.
The AEA spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 million of teachers’ dues in an attempt to unseat Republicans around the state during the 2014 election cycle. But after only a handful of victories during the primaries, the AEA did not win any of its targeted races in Alabama’s General Election.
“They AEA’s days are done,” Alabama Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh told Yellowhammer. “We want to work with the education community to establish good education policies. We’re committed to that. We want to make sure our teachers are paid well. We want to make sure they have great benefits. But we can do all of that without the AEA union. Their mentality is ‘attack, attack, attack.’ I want to work with our state’s teachers directly, not with the AEA.”
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